Wells Street Station
by Marquis Carabas
Summary: When Coraline and Wybie defeated the Beldam, they assumed that their troubles were at an end.  But old enemies have a long reach, especially when they seek out new allies.  Rated K-plus for mild violence and horror.
1. Flight

**Disclaimer: I don't own Coraline. I don't own the movie rights, the characters, the person of Neil Gaiman, or anything to do with it at all, really. I also don't own the numerous other works that I'll blatantly rip off … that is, _pay respectful homage to_ in this story. Heck, I barely own this disclaimer.**

**I'll accept any constructive criticism offered, and I'll do my best to respond to any reviews offered. That said, read on, and I hope you like it.**

* * *

><p>"Go on, smile."<p>

"Dad, I don't _do_ smiles for the camera."

"Well, just try to look sort of photogenic."

"The uniform kind of puts an upper limit on that. And it's a pretty low upper limit."

"Come on, fusspot, it's a bright new day. The sun's shining, birds are singing, and you'll start a whole new term at your new school. What's not to smile about?"

Coraline stared, completely deadpan. Then she said "I can never tell whether you're being serious or not, Dad."

It was a brisk, grey morning over the Pink Palace. The sun slumbered behind behind a pall of silver clouds, and wasn't shining by any measure. There weren't any bird calls within hearing distance. The repeated exhortations of "Dras, dva, tri, chetyri!" from Mr Bobinsky on the roof, coupled with vigorous callisthenics movements, did a good job of scaring away all birds within a half-mile radius. And the least said about Coraline's expectations of her school, the better.

She stood on the porch, holding her bag over one shoulder. She wore her school uniform, consisting of a dark grey blazer over a lighter grey shirt and dark skirt, with little enthusiasm. She had done her best to add a bit of colour in her orange-green gloves and black peaked hat, to little avail. In front of her, her dad eagerly brandished a camera. It was a tradition in the family to take a photo of her at the beginning of each new school year. This photo would join a chain which began with a smiling toddler ready for her first day at Frost Preschool and continued all the way through elementary school and the beginning of junior high.

"I have never been so serious about anything before," said Charlie Jones, hand on heart. "My serious about this can't be disputed. My seriousness has actually earned me several world records. So intense is my seriousness, that it actually sucks fun and spontaneity out of the vicinity. I'm like a walking black hole of seriousness. Stephen Hawking's written papers about my seriousness - "

That earned a quick smile and laugh from Coraline – and, quick as a flash, Charlie took the photo, catching the moment.

"Wha-? Oh, come on, Dad. That was sneaky."

"I'm an adult. We're allowed to be sneaky and unscrupulous by law." He put the camera away, and looked up at the brimming grey sky. "That definitely looks like rain. Are you sure you don't want to take the school bus?"

"Positive. Wybie's promised me a lift. He says he knows all the shortcuts into the town."

"Right," said Charlie, trying to keep the trepidation out of his voice. He had seen the Lovat boy and the motorcycle he drove at breakneck speeds around the surrounding countryside, with 'breakneck' being the salient term.

"He's offered to give me a lift back as well, so you guys won't have to pick me up."

"Okay. I'll be out in Portland for some deathly-dull meeting, but your mom should be here when you get back. She'll let you in, and you can -"

He was abruptly cut off by the sound of a air horn behind him, and Wybie came speeding and swerving up the road, enthusiastically hammering on the air horn as if the first time hadn't been enough to catch Coraline and Charlie's attention. The girl grinned and started forward, and threw herself onto the back of the puttering motorcycle.

"Hey, Mr Jones!" called Wybie, waving at Charlie. He had foregone his skull-mask and gloves but kept his fireman's coat, which fluttered out behind him. "You holding on tight, Jonesy?"

"I'm ready. Ah … doesn't this thing come with helmets?"

"Helmets?" Wybie seemed puzzled by the question. "Why would we ever need them?"

"In case we crash while you're driving?"

Wybie just looked confused. "I … don't think I understand the question. But anyway, no time for talking! See you later, Mr Jones!" He gunned the engine before Charlie could so much as loose a strangled yell, and blurred down the winding dirt road, Coraline holding on and whooping at his back.

Charlie could practically feel his hair greying and his blood pressure shooting up as he watched them flash off at a speed that left common sense rolling in the dust. _Next time_, he thought, _she takes the bus._

He didn't judge the boy too harshly, though. Coraline seemed to trust him. It was good that she had made a friend here, Charlie supposed. He was also glad he was able to make her laugh again after the painful last month, where moving home and work had conspired to make them pay less attention to Coraline. But that rocky period had passed as soon as they had finished the catalogue – in fact, Coraline had greeted them warmly the very day it had been finished. It had been peculiar, but happy, and Charlie had accepted it gratefully.

Of late, however, he could swear that his daughter seemed almost haunted by something. She had seemed slightly more withdrawn that she had been before they moved – and she always seemed to be a little ill-at-ease in the living room.

It was curious, and Charlie knew that he probably wouldn't be able to explain it. He put it from mind, and went inside to put the camera away.

* * *

><p>If Charlie fretted over his daughter's safety on the motorcycle, then he would have to do it for two people. Coraline was elated. She had never felt closer to flying.<p>

"I _have_ to get one of these," she shouted into Wybie's ear over the rattle from the engine. "Where did you get this?"

"Built it myself," he said with barely-concealed pride. "Borrowed old engine parts and wiring from my uncle, read a few books on basic mechanics, read a couple on more advanced mechanics, and knocked it into shape with duct tape. _Lots_ of duct tape. I think I did quite a good job, really. It hardly ever explodes now."

Coraline was only half-listening however, with most of her attention on the sights around her. The speed of the motorcycle turned the landscape to a blur of greens and browns, and the long grass flanking the dirt road slapped at the bike's sides. Skeletal trees rustled reluctantly in a hard breeze, and beyond them, Coraline saw the rising buildings on the outskirts of Ashland.

"So what's the school like, anyway?" she asked Wybie, holding onto him with one hand while she held onto her hat with the other. "Usual mixture of jerks, jocks, geeks, the whole thing?"

"Derleth Middle School? Oh yeah, it's suitably stereotypical in that regard." Wybie gunned the motor, eliciting an extra burst of speed and an alarming gurgle from the motorcycle. "Hey, I'm sure you'll fit right in. New kids come all the time. Most of them leave shortly after arriving, admittedly, but that's not the point."

"Right. Out of curiosity, where do you fit on the school spectrum?"

"Oh, I exist beyond it. Nobody messes with the Wybster," he said cheerfully, which Coraline mentally subtitled _Ultra-geek. So geeky, other geeks beat him up for lunch money._

But what the heck, she'd mostly been an outsider at her old school anyway. If she had to join Wybie on the periphery, then so be it. Besides, what could happen that would give her more hassle than the Beldam? What did she have to worry about?

Dealing with normal life after what had happened to her with the Beldam would practically be a relief.

Dirt roads faded to slate-grey concrete, and buildings began to spring up around them as they entered Ashland proper. The school was on the town's edges, so they only had a short way to go through the streets before they reached the building. It was a single old brick complex, surrounded and enclosed by a high metal fence, within which groups of other grey-clad students milled and chattered. All of them wore the hideously dull uniform, Coraline noted. Wybie was the only one there who wore anything besides the grey blazer on the outside. His firefighter's coat marked him out as much as Coraline's blue hair. They got a few distant, dispassionate glances from other students, before being dismissed from mind. Coraline waited while Wybie stored the motorcycle in the school's bike sheds.

"What homeroom do you have?" he asked.

"It's the one in … room seven," she said, consulting the timetable her mom had picked up for her the day before yesterday. "Which one's yours?"

"Room six. But I'll catch you at interval, okay?"

"Sure thing," she said, just as the bells in the building trilled, and the mass of students began trudging in.

Coraline ended up being one of the last to reach her homeroom. The twenty or so other students already there looked up briefly as she entered, stared at her hair, and then turned back to their own conversations. Coraline settled herself at her own table.

The teacher at the room's front, who was so round and small as to resemble Miss Spink minus twenty years, cheerfully ran them through the Pledge of Allegiance, made a few dull announcements, and concluded by rounding upon Coraline.

"We've got a new student with us for the new term, come fresh off the boat from Michigan," she trilled. "Introduce yourself to the others, dear."

Coraline inwardly thought a rude word, resenting being broken out of her isolation, and turned to the others, who were watching with only token interest.

"I'm Coraline Jones, from Pontiac," she began. "And just to clear up any preconceptions you might have held about Michigan; no, we're not all car mechanics, fishing _isn't_ our state sport, and I won't be violent at the drop of a hat. Two hats, at the least."

One boy chuckled, to be polite. There was a kind of collective shrug from the others.

"Well, Caroline..." the teacher said brightly.

The day inevitably went downhill from there.

* * *

><p><em>Sixteen hundred miles away, a girl ran. Her feet hit the floor in a percussive beat, and her breath came out in ragged gasps as she fled up the endless tunnel.<em>

_She was alone, here under the city. The tunnel stretched to darkness ahead and behind her, the glamour over it peeling away even as she ran. The red brick of the walls darkened and slicked over with mould and moss and scraps of faded paper, the floor under her feet shifted and grew metal rails and wooden ties. She fought to keep her footing on these, a stumble here could twist her ankle and make escape impossible._

_She ran on, praying that she could outrun what lurked behind her. She knew she had little time. She knew she would be followed._

_In her own echoes, she could already hear the slow, easy steps of her hunters._


	2. Confidence

Mel Jones was at home working when Coraline returned from school on the school bus.

She looked up when she heard the front door opening and closed her laptop, and smiled when her daughter entered from the hallway into the kitchen.

"Hey, Coraline," she said. "How did your first day go at..." She stopped when she saw Coraline's face. "Oh. That well, huh."

"You should see it," muttered Coraline, dropping her bag onto the floor and sitting down at the table. "It's like a cabal of mad scientists sat down around a table and said 'How can we design a place to be both boring and evil? And how do we inflict it on the innocent?'"

"Uh-huh. A change in school can be a little unsettling at first, but I'm sure it'll grow on you."

"Not this one. Put it this way. If I ever say something positive about the place, then you'll _know_ I've gone mad."

"Really? You mean that hasn't already happened?"

"Oh, very funny." Coraline sighed and stood up, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Crap, I shouldn't let the school affect me now I've finally escaped it. I'm going to go get changed. Wybie should be here soon; we're going for a walk."

"Hey, you've made a friend there at least. That has to count for something."

"I guess." Coraline sloped off upstairs, and Mel turned back to the laptop. It pained her to see her daughter disappointed; it had been Mel's idea that they should move to Oregon in the first place.

It had been necessary at the time, she knew. The gardening magazine she and Charlie had worked for had gone bust, and there had been a frantic, stressful time of financial uncertainty back in Pontiac. The commission for a catalogue from a company based in Ashland had seemed like a windfall, but had necessitated a move to the state. They had had to juggle the move with completing the catalogue, and it was easy to see in retrospect that they'd neglected Coraline.

It had been necessary, but painful, and Mel was glad it was over. There had been times when Coraline was so distant that she feared she'd lose her daughter. But now that she could focus on more distant deadlines, she could devote more time to Coraline.

When Coraline came running back down the stairs, the sound of her footsteps were accompanied by a knocking at the front door.

"That'll be Wybie," said Coraline, stopping briefly into the kitchen to retrieve her raincoat. She had changed into her jeans and striped top. "I won't be long."

"Sure thing. Be back before six. Your dad's cooking dinner tonight when he comes back."

"So, come back no sooner than seven?"

"Ha. If I'm eating his cooking, you're not escaping either."

Coraline laughed as she left. Mel smiled and turned back to her unhurried work.

* * *

><p>Wybie greeted Coraline at the front door. He had ditched his school uniform as well, and had reclaimed his skull mask and gloves. He was in his usual slouched posture, and immediately fell into step beside Coraline as she stepped outside.<p>

"So," he began brightly, "That was Derleth Middle School for you. I think the official motto's 'Blame the budget cuts, not us'."

"You survive there? You must be tougher than you look," said Coraline.

"That's sort of a compliment, so I'll take it as one. Where are we going?"

"Just around and about."

They passed Miss Forcible walking a pack of Scottie dogs as they walked, and she waved a cheerful greeting. From the roof-attic behind them, there came cries of "Put _effort_ into it, A-sharp!" followed by a sharp piping from some tiny mouse-held instrument.

The sky from Charlie had predicted rain was still the same ambiguous morass of blue-grey that it had been that morning, capable of going either way in the weather stakes. They moved up the hills flanking the house, chatting about nothing, until Wybie noticed their direction.

"We're going to the old well, aren't we?" he observed.

"Yes," said Coraline.

"Ah. Why?"

"Call it paranoia," said Coraline irritably. "But I just want to be sure that … well, that everything there's alright. That _she_ hasn't escaped."

"Who? Your Other Mother?"

"No, the Wicked Witch of the West. Of course the Other Mother, you moron." She paused, and then said, "I … sorry, that came out a little sharper than I meant."

"No harm done," said Wybie. "I mean, what happened … I know I wouldn't have liked to go through it myself. It sounded like hell, from what you told my gramma."

"Right."

"She's actually a lot more at-ease, since you told her everything. She's more at peace. Thank you for that."

Except he was wrong, Coraline knew. She hadn't told his grandmother, and by extension Wybie, everything. Only enough to set the old woman's mind at ease, and to cover the details of what his grandmother knew or suspected regarding her sister's disappearance.

She'd left out a few details. Such as the help from the cat, which sounded unbelievable when Coraline thought back on it. Wybie knew the cat better than anyone, and even he would have trouble believing it. She'd also left out the exact details of some of the Other Residents. Wybie didn't need to know about one of them in particular. Coraline didn't want to revisit that wound, in any case.

"Well, it was no bother," she said, pushing past the subject. "And I'll get over it. Just you watch."

They followed the dirt road through the clusters of cherry trees, the blossoms of which drifted off in the wind as they walked and turned the air into a storm of pink and white. The old well loomed before them, and it looked undisturbed. The dirt Coraline had shovelled across it hadn't been broken, and grass and small flowers were already beginning to creep out of the surface.

She stooped and ran a hand across the surface. There was nothing that suggested that the Beldam's hand had been smashed and hurled down a well below the surface. There was nothing to suggest anything other than that this was a perfectly normal patch of earth.

"You don't look convinced," said Wybie, watching from the side.

Coraline made a non-committal grunt by way of response.

"If you ask me what I think, then I think it's all over," said Wybie. "You took away the souls of the children she'd taken. She said she'd die without you, and you escaped her. We stopped her hand, and threw away the key that led to her realm. How could she come back?" His face was bright with a sunny, enthusiastic, and utterly misplaced confidence.

Coraline sketched a sweeping pattern in the dirt with her fingertip, brushing aside several small flowers. There was a bassy rumble from the sky overhead.

"In fact," said Wybie, just to completely add every last iota of dramatic irony that could be wrung from the situation, "I don't think anything freaky will happen here again. Ever."

* * *

><p><em>She had fled through the tunnel opening, out from where she'd first entered, and didn't stop running.<em>

_She ran through the building and dove out into the streets, weaving her way through the crowds of pedestrians cramming the streets, flitting between their paths, trying to ignore the stares she got, trying to keep her mind purely on her destination._

_She only let herself slow down once she was certain she had left a trail too convoluted for her hunters to follow, and she began planning as best she could._

_She had to get to the one person she knew could help her as quickly as possible. Only her target would believe her or understand what she'd been through. The only realistic method she had of getting there was via the trains._

_She consulted her eerily accurate mental map of the city streets, and made her way to Union Station. As she walked briskly, she checked the small amount of money she had in her pockets. She would maybe have enough for some food, some water, and one railway ticket. Beyond that, she had nothing like enough to get where she needed._

_Once she was at Union Station, all but dead on her feet, she bought a sandwich and bottle of water from one of the many small stores in the station, and put them away for later. Then she bought her one precious ticket, and took the first train that led in a vaguely Oregon-wards direction._

_After this first stage, she knew, she would have to make the rest of her journey on blind inference and desperate improvisation. She would have to stow herself away in cargo trains and avoid being spotted by security guards. Her journey would be long and dark and dangerous._

_But she had no choice. She had to get to Ashland, come hell or high water._


	3. Runagate

Five days, depending on your situation, can pass like a breath of wind or like a short eternity.

For Coraline, her first week at Derleth Middle School was definitely the latter, and when the end-of-school bell rang out on Friday, it was she could do to not skip to the exit.

She made herself wait with Wybie while he retrieved his motorcycle, and watched the other students leave through the main gate, laughing and joshing and splitting into smaller groups as they dispersed themselves into Ashland. It showed every sign of being a good weekend; the dull weather at the week's beginning had yielded to bright sunshine. The sky above was a brilliant robins-egg blue, tufted here and there with faint wisps of white clouds.

"Wybie?" she said, in a good mood. "Look at that sky. Look at your coat. Do you see anything incompatible? I do."

"Then make the sky go away," he responded, equally cheerfully. "The coat stays on."

"Come on, Wybie. I don't want to have be the one to ring your grandmother's door bell and tell her 'Sorry, Miss Lovat, Wybie died of a heat stroke brought on by terminal stupidity.' Why keep the coat on?"

"I have my reasons for keeping the coat, not least of which is because it's an _awesome_ coat," he said, freeing his motorcycle at last from an entangled chain. "There. You coming?"

Coraline looked back up at the sky.

"You know what? I think I'll walk. It's only a couple of miles, and I feel like the exercise."

"Do you need it?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Why-were-you-born." She started walking, and Wybie shrugged and wheeled the bike after her.

The trees that sprouted intermittently from the pavement drank in the sunlight, spreading their branches far to take it in. The heat baked the concrete, and sent insects scurrying for shade in nooks and crannies and cracks. There was the sound of cheer and laughter from all around Coraline and Wybie as they walked through the streets, as people enjoyed the sun. It was one of those fickle times of year when sunshine today could be replaced by rain tomorrow or in just a few hours, and made the light all the more precious while it lasted.

"My gramma asked me to ask you whether you'd like to come over for dinner some night," Wybie said suddenly. "Er … that applies to your family as well. I mean … um, dinner, basically."

"Sure. Sometime this weekend? Assuming I'm not too busy setting my homework on fire and dancing on the ashes."

"What have you got?"

Coraline swung her bag round to her front, and rummaged through it while muttering, "This is typical. There's subjects I can do. English, I can do. I'm alright at Art. God help me, I'm actually _good_ at History. But do I get homework for any of these?" She withdrew what she was looking for and brandished it with one hand, as if daring the wind to swipe down and carry it off. "Three pages of Math. _Math_." She pronounced the word in the same way others might pronounce 'war criminal' or 'career politician'.

"Ah. Not a favourite, then?"

"No. I hate it, and it seems to hate me back." She pushed the papers back into her bag, and Wybie shyly looked at her sideways.

"I could have a look at it for you," he said. "I mean, seeing as if you'll be coming over anyway, and I'm not bad at it-"

"Yes, I saw your 'not bad' 100% mark on Wednesday. But if you could do that, then that would really help. And if you've got anything I could help you with in return..."

"Well, I've got a small essay to do for History," said Wybie slowly, hesitantly. "It's almost done, I've just got a few paragraphs to write on Thomas Jefferson's role during the Revolution-"

"You're in luck, Wybie. I happen to know Jefferson inside out."

They rounded another corner on the pavement as they chatted, and progressed along a long, tree-shaded avenue. On the opposite side of the road from Coraline and Wybie, Ashland's railway station stood ready in the spring heat, accepting a goods train that pulled in at that very moment.

* * *

><p><em>She knew, from the signs that had flashed past the small window in the poky carriage, that she was here. She was finally in Ashland.<em>

_The journey had been worse than she'd imagined. She relied on the laziness of security guards to not notice as she crept onto boxcars, on a string of chances taken at different stations that she would end up on the right track. She had only been able to snatch a few odd moments of sleep in the time she spent in the carriages, cramped into the cold darkness and surrounded by the rattle of cargo and rails. She had stolen food from station shops, in violation of her moral codes. She had made a stop at the restrooms in each station along her path._

_The journey had been an exercise in hell. And what would come after it was uncertain, at best._

_But now, at least, she would find out._

_She slipped out of a opened train door, and crept out of the station and into a tree-lined street._

_Then she stood silent and astounded when she saw a flash of blue hair on the other side, and visibly started when she saw the girl it was attached to. What, she thought, were the possible chances of seeing her just like that?_

_She wrote it up to God working in damn peculiar ways, and hurried on over towards her target._

* * *

><p>"...No, you're getting him confused with Franklin here," said Coraline here, stabbing a finger at a line on Wybie's paper. They were still walking along the avenue, Wybie listening while Coraline went through his essay in punishing detail.<p>

"He wasn't a member of the Committee of Five?"

"No, he _was_, but you're giving the quote to the wrong person. Franklin said the line about hanging together rather than separately. If you want a relevant quote for Jefferson, then how about..." She rummaged through her memory. "How about the one that ends with dying as freemen rather than living as slaves?"

"I don't think I remember the exact wording for that one."

"Well, once you've written it down, say how it serves as an accurate reflection of Jefferson's unyielding belief in America's right to resist British dominion. And it goes – look it up later, I might be misquoting - 'With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the...'"

"Could I just say how it's a little impressive – and more than a little scary - that you're apparently able to reel all this off the top of your head?"

"When I was a little kid, we once spent two years living at my grandma's house, and she had a whole library full of history books, all of which had _stupidly_ long titles," Coraline said. "Spend two years of your life with nothing but those to read, and you'd know more of this than was good for you as well."

"It's still pretty impressive from my point of view. I'm lucky when I remember which president came after which."

"If you have trouble recalling the exact flow of events, then it helps if you just think of it as a story in a book. Admittedly, a story with a little more muskets and explosions than most you'll read."

"Not the kind of stories _I_ read," said Wybie.

"Um. Excuse me?"

They both turned at the sudden new voice, and saw a girl standing behind them on the pavement.

She was about their age, and had a haunted, hunted look about her. She had a dark complexion, with black hair that ended in ringlets at her shoulders, and bloodshot dark eyes. She wore a dark green coat over a red and white floral print dress that fell from her neck to her ankles. A crucifix hung around her neck, which she tapped at and stroked as she looked at Coraline and Wybie.

She was also completely bedraggled and exhausted, and looked at the pair with the desperate, weary eyes of a spectre.

"Are … are you Coraline Jones?" she asked quickly, her eyes flitting in the habit of those uncomfortable with eye contact.

"I am," said Coraline while Wybie stared, confused. "Why? Who are you?"

The girl took a moment to collect herself, breathing in and out to steady on-edge nerves. Then she said:

"I'm Maria Ortega, and I've come from Chicago. I've escaped a Beldam there, and I need your help."

Then whatever pent-up strength had been fuelling her for the last haul deserted her, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she collapsed out of sheer physical exhaustion.

The silence was first broken by Coraline.

"What the _hell_?"


	4. Asylum

"..._oh, we're travelling light today, in the eye of the storm, in the..._"

Isaac stabbed a finger down on the button that shifted tracks. There was an alarming gurgle from his van's elderly CD player, and Neil Diamond promptly changed tack.

Isaac turned his attention back to the road, and set his gaze on where the grey ribbon of motorway met a light-soaked horizon. The road was empty of other traffic, and despite what his driving instructor had hammered into him like a vengeful drill sergeant, Isaac found his mind wandering onto other matters.

Like the strange job he'd been given, for example.

"_I see the signs in your eyes, and I know that it's you, baby, baby..._"

A few days ago, he'd been enjoying a beer with some friends in a bar near the Chicago State University campus. He'd downed a few, happily chatted up a couple of female students there with no real expectation of success, and had been one of the last of his gang to leave.

Just as he had been getting his coat, however, two other people had entered the bar. He had ignored them, right up until one of them cleared their throat and asked if Isaac had been interested in making some money.

They were a man and a woman, and had introduced themselves as Mr Bodkin and Miss Thimble, names that immediately struck Isaac as pseudonyms. The man had looked like a parody of a federal agent, with a hulking frame, trimmed black hair, and a powerful jawline. The woman looked like a Businesswoman Barbie, with long blonde hair, sculpted features, and a permanent smile that could have done service advertising for Colgate.

Both of them wore the same dark business suits. Both of them wore large mirrored sunglasses, which showed Isaac nothing but his own reflection in their lenses. And they had a job offer for Isaac.

It sounded simple enough. They knew Isaac had a van. They wanted Isaac to drive them out of state, all the way to the Western Seaboard to Oregon, to Ashland, specifically. They would make a pickup there, and then Isaac would drive them all the way back. They assured him that everything would be on the level. And they offered him a thousand dollars upfront, and promised an additional two grand on completion.

Had Isaac been sober at the time, he might have wondered why business done on the level would require the services of a penniless student's transport. He might have asked questions about what exactly they were going to pick up. He might even have wondered what sort of business merited payments measured in thousands of dollars. Alas, he had been drunk and in no condition to make these sorts of enquiries.

Sobriety the day after had raised some of these questions, however. Isaac would be lying if he said that he wasn't at least a little uncomfortable about the work. But he needed the money: he was a penniless student after all. The trip's time-scale wouldn't interfere with any of his classes. And he knew that he could always report the two to the police if he needed to.

At least, he hoped he could. There was something wholly sinister about them, and he couldn't suppress his unease in their presence.

"_...only a blind man would leave you behind, but not me._"

In that respect, it maybe wasn't a good idea for one of them to always be sitting next to him while he drove. At the moment, it was Mr Bodkin, who sat with his arms folded in the passenger seat. He regarded the road ahead without the barest flicker of emotion. He had switched that seat with Miss Thimble multiple times over the past few days, and both of them held the same pose with the same lack of emotion.

"So," said Isaac. He would often start conversations with them like this, and considered himself lucky if he got a response. "We'll call it a day at about eight, and find a stop. Plenty of time yet."

Mr Bodkin nodded, slightly.

"We're pretty close to Oregon, actually. We'll definitely cross the state line tomorrow, and we've got a pretty good chance of reaching Ashland then as well."

"Good," said Mr Bodkin, with what was all but undetectable satisfaction. The road ahead gleamed in his glasses.

* * *

><p>Coraline and Wybie ran forward to where the girl, Maria, had fallen. She had managed to catch part of the fall with her hands, and was trying to push herself up again.<p>

"What did you – I – here, let me help," said Coraline quickly, reaching out and helping Maria pull herself to her feet.

"Thanks," said Maria, pulling away from Coraline's touch slightly as she stood up, swaying slightly. "I know this might be a little … unexpected for you, but I didn't know who else I could go to. You're the only other person who knows about Beldams, I think, and there's no one else that I..."

Coraline's mind shook itself to life as the girl spoke, forced into activity with the same energy that overcame her when her parents had been taken (and came hand in hand with those same memories). Echoes of circus music and sinister laughter pealed in her memory, buttons and thread unspooled and uncoiled, forming half-dormant fears, creating questions.

_What does she mean, a Beldam in Chicago? She's escaped it? Is it a different Beldam (oh god, is there more than one?) or is it the Other Mother (oh god, she's back?) or … what? She needs my help? How did she know that I'd fought a Beldam? Maybe it is the Other Mother in Chicago, and she revealed that I beat her. But if that's what happened, then what..._

_Right, okay, I can deal with this as it comes. But first, I need to get Maria somewhere where she can get some rest, she looks like she's been coshed over the head by the Sandman. But where?_

"Maria?" said Coraline. "I'm going to take you somewhere you can rest – I'm not sure where – and get a bite to eat, okay? You look dead on your feet. I'll be asking you one heck of a lot of questions. But first, we're taking you to … to ..." She stopped mid-sentence, considering her options. Maria looked away briefly, rubbing at her strained eyes and pacing in a short path across the pavement.

Wybie interjected in a quick whisper, "Wait, wait, what's happening? You're taking her to your place?"

"I – that's – no." Coraline pinched the bridge of her nose. "My mom and dad don't know about what happened, they don't remember a thing. They know I've only made friends with you, they'll get suspicious if I bring Maria over. I need someplace else."

"Someplace nearby that'll be willing to take her in. Someplace that's a little … weird, and hence more forgiving of weirdness. Someplace with people you know and can trust to keep quiet."

Coraline opened her mouth, then shut it. Then she opened it again.

"Amazing," she said. "We're actually spoiled for choice." She decided on one of her options and turned back to Maria. "Hey, Maria?"

"Yes?"

"Are you a dog person? This is important."

* * *

><p>They took one of the many dirt paths that threaded throughout the Ashland countryside like veins around a heart, curving brown loops that flowed through green-and-khaki hills and forests. They walked three abreast, with Coraline and Wybie walking on the left and right, ready to catch Maria in case she fell. Wybie had given her his water bottle, and that had woken her up marginally.<p>

The path took them within spitting distance of the old well. Coraline didn't want to look at it, and Wybie was too distracted to care. Some rain at the week's beginning had partially washed away the loops and patterns Coraline had left in the earth over it, but they were still there, the grooves still apparent.

"You'll be in good hands," Coraline told Maria. "The old ladies I'm taking you to are trustworthy. They'll make sure you get some rest and quiet. You can deal with it all tomorrow. I intend to."

"That'll be … hard," said Maria. "I haven't slept well. There have been … dreams. Not good ones."

"Believe me, you'll be fine. The place we're going to is perfectly peaceful and normal..."

Abruptly, there bounded from one side of the path, from the tall rustling grass, a jumping mouse. Fastened around its front was a little silver tuba, the harness of which connected at the small of the mouse's back. The mouthpiece was made to fit into the mouse's mouth, and every time the mouse jumped, the tuba played a single, piping note. _Toot-toot-toot _came from the tuba as the mouse jumped across the dirt path, and _toot-toot-toot_ continued as it vanished into the grass on the other side of the path.

Mr Bobinsky came running after it in a matter of seconds, waving what looked like an outsized butterfly net over his head as he cried "Pa-dazh-di! E-flat, come back!" He stopped briefly, jogging on the spot, his belly bouncing with the confines of his tight vest. He nodded quickly to each of them in turn - "Caroline, New Girl, Devil Child," - then ran off after the mouse.

The only sounds in the still moment after that were the distant cries of "Come back, E-flat!" and the fading strains of _toot-toot-toot_.

Maria's face was a picture, and hence worth a thousand words. Most of them were some variation on _What the hell was that?_

"That, ah, was Mr Bobinsky," said Coraline, to fill the endlessly echoing gulf of silence. "He's … training these mice for a circus. And though he might not seem _especially_ normal, he's not crazy. He's just … eccentric."

More silence.

"Shall we get a move on?" said Coraline.

"Please," said Maria, walking on, while casting startled glances in the direction Mr Bobinsky had run. Beside her, Wybie tried to conceal his cackles behind his coat's sleeve.

"Look, that was a little … abnormal, I'll admit, but – _stop laughing, Why-Were-You-Born_ – he's alright, not the dangerous sort of crazy," said Coraline.

While she spoke, Wybie let his attention drift to the grass, which shortened as they drew nearer to the Pink Palace. He suddenly saw a likely-looking flash of yellow, and the hand which wasn't gently wheeling his motorcycle drifted to the tongs in his pocket.

"But apart from him, everybody here's pretty nor..." Coraline said to the unconvinced Maria.

"Here, hold this for a second," Wybie said suddenly, and Maria reflexively shot out a hand to support the motorcycle while Wybie darted into the grass with the tongs. He stooped, rummaged, and re-emerged holding a massive banana slug. It wriggled in the tongs and regarded Wybie with a baleful gaze, inasmuch as a slug can muster balefulness.

"Check it out," he crowed. "Son of Slugzilla. I mean, wow, this guy's one of the biggest I've come across."

"Hey, I'm as impressed as you are, Maria," continued Wybie, completely misreading the look on her face. "And Coraline … Coraline … uh." He stopped. Even a blind person would have had no trouble reading the look on her face. "Hey, ah, this doesn't support your case, does it, Jonesy? Jonesy? Uh, you know, from where I'm standing, it kind of looks like you're trying to stop my heart with your mind. I'm just saying."

"Let's move on, shall we?" said Coraline in a kind of modulated growl.

"So, is there anything I should know about whatever house I'm going to?" ventured Maria after a few moments of walking, by which time they were close to the Pink Palace. "Are the owners … er, normal, or...?"

"Forsooth! The tea-leaves were right!"

Miss Forcible shouted out, catching their attention as she stood at the top of the stairs leading down to her and Miss Spink's section of the Pink Palace. She wore her usual pink dressing gown, which had been washed with some arcane washing fluid that had rendered it almost fluorescent. She waggled her lorgnette on her nose with one hand, and supported the fortune-teller's cap with the other. "See, April? I told you!" There was an answering chorus of dog barks from downstairs.

"Would it insult your intelligence if I said 'yes' to that question?" said Coraline quietly.

"Immensely," answered Maria.

"Then I won't."

"I told you! Caroline, at our door, with a tall, dark, and handsome stranger!" She squinted. "Well, 'handsome' isn't perhaps the proper term, and she isn't awfully tall, but the point stands! Come in, dear. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Not at the moment, Miss Forcible, thank you," said Coraline. "But I do have a big favour to ask."

"Ask away, dearie."

"Well, my friend -" Coraline hesitated for a moment, over whether or not to use Maria's real name, and decided it couldn't matter. "-Maria, needs a place to stay for a night or two. I know this might be awkward for you..."

"Why, not at all, dear. We've had many a person stay here on short notice. Isn't that right, April?"

"What?" said Miss Spink, sticking her head out the front door. Several Scotties poked their noses out as well, sniffing at the air.

"I was just saying to Caroline how we've had many people spend a night here. Remember when we had that charming Mark Twain over?"

"Mar... Didn't he die a century ago?" said Wybie.

"Well, he said he was Mark Twain. Or maybe he was a little inebriated at the time. Either way, we'll be more than pleased to give your friend a bed for the night." Miss Forcible beckoned Maria onwards. "Come on in, duck. You're looking a little peaky."

"Go on," said Coraline, in response to Maria's look. "They're alright. We'll talk tomorrow."

Maria, with some reluctance, followed Miss Forcible down the stairs and through the door, which closed with a slam and ecstatic yelps from the canine welcoming committee. Coraline breathed out. Wybie looked round at her.

"That was … unexpected."

"You can say that again." She took off her hat and swiped at the air with it in frustration. "God's sake! I … I thought that was the end of it! I mean, I suspected that it might not be over, but now it's coming back, I just don't know..." She seethed in silence. Wybie looked on, unsure what to say or do.

"Alright," she said, donning her hat. "Okay, I know how I'm going to do this. I'm going to deal with it. I'm going to go home. I'm going to sort of quietly _absorb_ the situation. Then, once I've spent the night tossing and turning, I'm going to check on Maria and ask her every question as well. You should come over as well, this could concern you as well."

"That's true," said Wybie, shifting uncomfortably. "I'll see you later, okay? I'll definitely be over tomorrow. We can talk to her together."

"Thank you."

Wybie nodded, mounted his motorcycle, and started the engine. As he puttered off, he heard Coraline mutter "Right. Commencing dealing with it right _now_."

Mel and Charlie were both home, and were sitting in the kitchen when they heard the front door open.

"Hey, Coraline. How was school today?" Charlie said as she walked in to drop off her bag.

"Huh? Yeah, it was okay," said Coraline, seemingly distracted.

"Glad to be free for the weekend?" asked Mel.

"Sure," said Coraline absently, and then walked out of the room and briskly up the stairs.

"You know, I thought we'd have a couple of years at least before we got given the monosyllabic treatment," said Charlie when they heard her footsteps on the stairs.

"Growing up really comes on like a mugging," said Mel, sipping at her coffee.


	5. Departure

Coraline decided to wait until the early afternoon of the next day before she spoke to Maria. As tense as she was, she felt that she managed to contain her impatience well.

"For goodness sake, Coraline," said her mom at one point during the morning, "If you're going to pace relentlessly, would it kill you to do it outside? You're digging a groove in the floor."

Okay, maybe she didn't contain it all that well. But frankly, she thought it was a miracle that she didn't explode with tension.

The early afternoon rolled around at last, and she checked the day outside. It was pretty warm and mild, with only a few clouds in the sky. She didn't bother with her raincoat, but wore her dark blue jacket, just in case. She wore it with her outfit of her orange striped top, skirt and green tights, and added her green-and-orange gloves and hat to the equation.

She stepped out into the sunshine, and walked around to Miss Spink and Forcible's to get Maria. She used the door knocker once, twice, and was overwhelmed by the customary wave of dogs when the door was opened by Miss Spink.

"Hello, Caroline, dear," she trilled as Coraline tried to extricate herself from the pack. "Are you here to see Maria?"

"Yes, we'd planned to go for a walk. Is she...?"

"Oh, she's all ready. Stop _bothering_ the girl, Hamish. Hold a second, I'll just get her." She bustled off with her walker, and came back with Maria. She looked considerably more rested and healthy, and her clothes from yesterday had been washed. She stepped out of the door, and said a quiet "Thank you for having me," as she passed Miss Spink.

"Not a trouble, dearie. Come back any time." She waved them goodbye as they walked briskly up the steps, and closed the door as they alighted on the top step.

Once they were a few steps away from the house, Maria said, tentatively, "It's not that I'm ungrateful to them, but … the shelves of stuffed dogs?"

"They're _really_ attached to their Scotties," said Coraline.

"The posters?"

"Mementoes from their days in the theatre," said Coraline. "That's 'theatre' in inverted commas, I think."

"And the tea leaves?"

"Oh. Did they do a prediction for you?"

"Miss Spink swore she saw death and destruction and fire in my future. Miss Forcible said she saw a kitten."

"Really? I got terrible danger and a giraffe. Actually, you might just want to make a note of they told you."

"Right. Kittens and fiery doom. Easy to remember." Maria clutched her green coat closer around her. She still seemed uncomfortable with eye contact, Coraline noticed. One of her hands drummed against her other wrist in a continuous beat.

"Are we waiting for that boy from yesterday? He helped you against your Beldam, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he did. And he should be arriving right … about … now," said Coraline, frowning at the plastic blue watch she wore on her left wrist. Her dad had gotten it for her the week before in Ashland.

She had thought the watch would be superfluous for this situation; Wybie's motorcycle could be heard in neighbouring time zones. She frowned and looked around her, and saw Wybie strolling across the surrounding terrain to the Pink Palace. He moved in his permanent slouch, and wore his customary fireman's coat and tri-eyed skull helmet.

"No bike today?" she asked, moving towards him with Maria on her tail.

"Did you know duct tape doesn't react well to naked flames?" he said, more than a little morosely, his voice weirdly modulated by the helmet.

"I … what?"

"Yeah, me neither. At least, I didn't know it would react _that_ violently." He shook his head. "So until I can piece it all back together, that's me reduced to walking for the next week or so."

"Oh well. I'd planned on this being a walk anyway."

"To talk to …? Oh, hey, Maria." He nodded at her, then turned back to the countryside. "Where to?"

"Wherever. This is probably going to be a long walk."

* * *

><p><strong>Ashland welcomes careful drivers<strong> announced the sign on the road that Isaac passed. He looked to his right. Miss Thimble rode shotgun, her face composed and set in her permanent frosty smile, her eyes hidden and unreadable behind her glasses.

"That's us in Ashland," said Isaac helpfully. "Where do you want dropped off? How long would you like me to wait for you?"

"Keep driving," she said, the direction of her gaze never moving. "Circuit the streets. I shall inform you when we need to be dropped off."

Isaac raised his brow at the instruction, but carried it out anyway. This was strange enough that that request wasn't the strangest of it all by a long shot.

Mr Bodkin sat in the passenger seat immediately behind Isaac, his expression in the rear-view mirror as dispassionate as ever. The door to the van's compartment stood between his seat and the one on his right. The two had asked Isaac to make sure the compartment was empty. Whatever they wanted to transport had to be big to need the room.

He turned a corner with the van, and began a long circuit of the Ashland streets.

* * *

><p>"So, where do you want to start?" said Coraline to Maria. They were walking in the same abreast formation as yesterday along a trail that wound around the hills surrounding the Pink Palace.<p>

Maria pursed her lips, and seemed to try and find the words to begin her story. She seemed shy, almost cripplingly so, and clearly didn't get on that well in social interaction.

"I … told you yesterday that I came from Chicago, and that I escaped from a Beldam there. I … that's ..."

Coraline took mercy, and decided to lead the conversation. "Where were you when you met her? When did you first meet her?"

"It was last Friday, on a school trip to the Merchandise Mart," began Maria, now confident with a given starting point. "Do you know the Mart? It's one of the biggest malls in the world, and it used to be the biggest building in the world as well. It's a historical building, so we were touring some of the older bits of it as a History trip. One of the things we dropped in on was the train station attached to it – it's so big, it gets its own station in the city system."

"When we were looking in on it, I saw a small door against one of the offices. It was just sitting there, and there wasn't any 'Keep Out' signs or anything. It looked a little out of place, and was a bit ajar, and, well, I thought I'd just have a little look through. Nobody was paying any attention to me, so I opened it and … there was a corridor running down through it. It didn't cut through the office behind it or anything, and the walls seemed to glow."

"It was like I was hypnotised. I just started walking down it. I don't know if anyone saw me go. I walked for what seemed like just a few minutes but must have been a really long way – the walls just had this soft glow to them all the way, and the floor ran on a constant slope downwards, and the corridor curved so you could never see too far ahead of you. I kept walking until I came to another little door. When I opened that, then I saw – it was like Heaven."

"There was a big, white building, all covered with turrets like a castle in a Disney film. The corridor I had followed became a path leading to the front door. There might have been other paths coming from other doors around me, I think. And standing in front of it, there was a woman. She was tall, and really beautiful and warm at the same time. She had buttons for eyes. And she said she was here to take care of me forever."

"Did she look like your mother?" said Coraline, spellbound despite the awkward delivery. So far, everything had a parallel with her own experiences.

Maria turned away, as if stung. "I don't have one. I'm an orphan. Or, well, I have been since I was three." Wybie looked at her with renewed focus. He span his skull helmet awkwardly in his hands.

A lead weight settled in Coraline's stomach. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay. Nobody means to. But she did promise to be my mother. And I wanted to believe her. She was so beautiful, and motherly as well, and she ..."

"She made everything so much better for you," said Wybie, drawing on what Coraline had said earlier

"It was _perfect_. There was no one disturbing me, plenty of places where I could get peace and quiet, and if I ever needed anything, she would be there. I didn't leave after I found it. I practically forgot about what I'd left behind. I mean, I actually believed for a while that I had died and gone to Heaven. It was what I had always desired."

She breathed out.

"Then buttons," supplied Coraline.

"Then buttons. She came with a little box when I was eating on … Sunday night, that was it. She said that if I wanted to stay here forever, then all I'd have to do was get buttons the same as hers. White with a red edge, and red thread in the middle. She had the spool all ready, and she had this _hungry_ look on her face. Like she was hungry and gloating at the same time."

"Which kind of put everything in a new light."

"A little bit, yeah. I ran, or tried to run. She shut doors all over the place in my face when I tried to run out. She started changing, and the building started changing as well. Everything became thinner and darker and … _polluted_, somehow. And there were other people there, button-eyed ones she had made. They started looking for me, and I had to keep on running and hiding throughout the building. There were a lot of shadows. A lot of nooks and crannies."

Coraline opened her mouth to interrupt, but Maria waved her to be quiet. She was in full swing, and almost eager to let the words escape her now.

"It was the day after on Monday that I escaped. I was hiding in one of the larger rooms, and I could hear her – the Beldam – in the next one over. She was humming cheerfully, she thought she's get me sooner or later. I think she was happy to take her time, to keep me on the run."

"Then I heard her speaking, and a new voice answer her. I wanted to take a look, even though I was scared stiff, and I did. I peeked around the corner – and I saw another one like her."

"She had only one hand, and her button-eyes were sewn on really loosely -" - Coraline's eyes shot wide open in appalled recognition - "- And she was talking about needing help from her older sister. That she had been defeated, and stolen from, and that she needed souls, whatever _that_ meant. It was like – she must have been your Beldam, because she mentioned you quite a lot. She said where you were, but she didn't say how you had defeated her."

"I decided to escape then, while my Beldam – they called each other when they first started talking – was distracted and talking to your one. And I knew I had to find you, so I knew what to do if she ever came back for me. I've been running and taking trains since Monday. I think I'm already being followed."

She stopped talking then, and gave it a moment to sink in for Coraline and Wybie. By then, they had ended up on a section of trail that ran close to the main road leading around Ashland. The Pink Palace was still visible in the distance, and iron-grey clouds were slowly spreading out from behind it.

* * *

><p>"There," said Miss Thimble suddenly, waving for Isaac to stop. He pulled over to the side on the unremarkable country road, and looked around in confusion.<p>

"What? Where? What are you looking for?"

"Stay here and stay quiet," she said, opening her door and stepping quickly out. From behind Isaac, Mr Bodkin was doing the same thing.

"But-"

"Stay," she snapped, slamming her door shut. "And get your back doors open and be ready to move."

* * *

><p>"You need my help to defeat her if you meet the – your Beldam again," said Coraline weakly. The story had confirmed so many of her worst fears, had justified so many of her deep anxieties. Briefly, she resented Maria for bring them back. She knew that wasn't a fair thought, and dismissed it almost at once.<p>

"I do," said Maria. Her face was screwed up in desperation. "I mean, you don't have to come back with me or anything. Just tell me what you did to beat your one off. Please. Then I'll go – I'll get back to Chicago somehow and-"

"Has she taken anyone you care about? She might let you challenge her to a game for them."

"No. There's no one she could take. I don't have any family that I know about, and I didn't make any friends at the school."

"No foster parents?"

"No. They're only for the lucky orphans. Otherwise, it's a system that takes care of you, and it doesn't care about you on any personal level. There's just isolation. There's nobody she could take."

Coraline stopped and tried to think. Her gaze fell on Wybie, and then it hit her like a bolt of lightning mid-thought. Wybie lived with his grandma, didn't he? He'd never spoken about his mom or dad, or given any indication that they existed, or even alluded to them. What was that story? Could he relate to this?

She tried to redirect her thoughts again. From behind her, there were the sounds of approaching footsteps. She shut them out. She paced forward slightly, past Wybie and Maria.

"Okay, how sure are you that you're being followed?" she asked. "I … know from experience that people created by my Beldam couldn't leave her world. If she can't actually get to you, then there's nothing to fear."

"Do you think it's as simple as that?" Maria looked hopeful, but not convinced. Coraline wanted to say yes, but she didn't know whether or not she'd be lying.

"I honestly don't..."

The footsteps grew nearer, sharper. Coraline half-turned, and saw a man and a woman.

They wore identical business suits. They were hulking and beautiful, respectively. They wore mirrored glasses. They stood behind Wybie and Maria with triumphant looks on their faces.

And before Coraline could speak, the woman smiled, brandished a dark cloth in one hand, and drove a knee into the small of Wybie's back. He let out all his breath with one startled rush, and the woman dove forward and wrapped the cloth tight across his face. He frantically drew in huge, sucking breathes to regain his air, air which was filtered through the dark, pungent cloth. Within a few breaths, he was slumping; within another couple, he fell without a sound. His skull helmet toppled from his limp hands and lay on the ground.

The man, at the same time, brandished something small and black in his huge right hand, and swiped it at the hollow between Maria's neck and right shoulder. There was a harsh zapping sound and a crackle as it touched and shocked her through her clothes. She collapsed with a gasp, and twitched on the ground from the voltage of the miniature taser.

The woman smiled with greater intensity, and stepped forwards. Coraline saw the glasses covering her eyes, and put two and two together.

"Stay back," she said, trying to stop her voice trembling, clenching her hands automatically into fists. "Get away from them. I'll call for help. I know where to punch you so that it hurts."

"Really?" said the woman. "What a coincidence. So does my associate."

Coraline realised, too late, that the woman was distracting her from the real threat.

She didn't have time to dodge the blow from the man, which slammed into the side of her head and sent stars spinning and fireworks exploding and pain throbbing in the immediate vicinity of her skull, and as she reeled, she felt a sickeningly hollow sensation, and she realised _That was too hard a punch, I can't keep standing_, and physics and force won out. She fell sideways into spreading darkness.

"Take them all," she heard the woman say, echoing as if from a vast and impossible distance. "Our lady specified all three of them."

Then darkness descended like a shroud, and unconsciousness took Coraline with barely a whisper.

* * *

><p>Isaac was standing by the open back doors of his van when he heard Mr Bodkin and Miss Thimble returning. He had heard the sounds of what might have been a scuffle, and his concerns that this might have been some sort of hit were intensified. He was greatly tempted to just drive away.<p>

His concerns were dismissed, and replaced with entirely new and greater ones, when the two returned. Miss Thimble held two unconscious kids, one over each shoulder. Mr Bodkin held one.

"What the _hell_ is going on?" demanded Isaac, rising to his feet, rage overcoming fear for a moment.

"Nothing to concern yourself with," said Miss Thimble. "Get ready to drive quickly. I don't want us to be seen."

"This … this is a goddamn kidnapping! You – I'm not helping you with this, what the blazing-"

Mr Bodkin loomed over him, and Isaac turned to face him.

"Either you help us," the man said, simply, in his growl of a voice, "Or I kill you here and take my chances with your vehicle." His free hand slipped into an inside pocket, and came out holding a sleek, dark automatic. He levelled it at Isaac's forehead, and Isaac nearly screamed as he stared down the nozzle. Mr Bodkin's glasses gleamed, showing Isaac's own blanched face.

"Will you co-operate?"

Isaac stared down the gun, at the horrific, eyeless man holding it, and loathed himself as a coward for nodding weakly.

"Then _move_."


	6. Transit

Unconsciousness rolled over Coraline, in a fogged series of disconnected images and voices that had the logic and continuity of a dream.

The smooth motion and tapestry of her conscious mind had been shattered and temporarily divided in countless disconnected pieces, like the segments of a patchwork splitting apart and remaining connected only by the most tenuous of fibres. Her mind flitted from memory to image to long-lost voice, each one being replaced by the next almost as soon as it had been processed. Patches of her past in Michigan passed her by -

_-come on hubcaps we can do better than this-_

_-why did she dye her hair blue she looks like a freak-_

_-we don't have any choice dear we have to move i'm sorry-_

- and passed on. More recent memories came to the fore. The images and voices here were as diverse as they were unusual. Here, a grinning skull-faced boy mounted on a motorcycle, illuminated by a lightning stroke through dark trees. There, a tower ringed with circus mice, dancing to the music of a ringmaster's master. Here, a hollow chiming in the midst of a haunted and eldritch garden, undercut by the screaming of a mechanised mantis-tractor.

Presently, yet more present ones drifted past her, some pretence of continuity asserting itself in this illogical realm. Her first day at Derleth Middle School (and looking back on it now, it was still perfectly damn hideous), Maria staring at her with frantic, bloodshot eyes (she had to be tougher than she looked, if she'd really come from Chicago by herself), and the woman (An Other woman? The Beldam of Chicago herself? Coraline was unsure) smiling as fireworks exploded in Coraline's skull.

_-i know where to punch you so that it hurts -_

Hah. The thoughts of that last one played before her. She hadn't been lying. She'd actually taken self-defence classes back in Pontiac.

The memories of those classes came back to her, spurred on now by a slowly reknitting consciousness. They had taken place every Saturday in an old community centre, where the posters on the walls were as old as the peeling wallpaper. The classes had been divided into an adults section and a kids section, with about a dozen people apiece. She had gone with her friend Robbie, and quickly learned that this wouldn't be a class that fitted any expectations.

For one thing, the teacher was the most atypical part of the whole thing. His name was Lee Hwai-min, and to all appearances, he looked as though he had wandered away from a casting set for a stereotypical Kindly Old Martial Arts Master. He was small and frail in frame, and walked with the aid of a stick. His dark brown eyes seemed to radiate ease and serenity, and his skin was tanned and weathered by long years of living. His white hair, what little of it was left around the back of his head, was tied back in a queue.

However, rather than completing the Mr Miyagi mould with an equivalent personality, Hwai-min seemed to have finished his education at the Pai-Mei school of psychopathy.

"When in battle, a fighter does not fear!" he would snap as he marched between terrified students. "When you are approached by a mugger, by a thug, in some alley, you will not lose yourself. You will lock away the fear, and you shall react with cold precision – like a serpent!" He emphasised this with a unseeably swift, unspeakably violent lunge at the most advanced student there, who landed some feet away in a gurgling heap.

"Fear is the mind-killer," he snarled, pounding his stick on the ground for emphasis. "You must kill it first with iron discipline, with steel in mind and body."

"Oh god, my _molecules_ hurt," wheezed the recumbent student.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body! Now get up and stand so the others can again see what I did – this time, in slow motion."

Gods alone knew what he was doing teaching self-defence in a community centre in Pontiac. In fact, gods alone knew what he was doing anywhere outwith a facility fortified with concrete and razor wire and attack dogs and machine guns. If ever a person could qualify for being outlawed by the Geneva Conventions, Hwai-min would pass with flying colours.

To his credit, he was good at what he did, and he was at least marginally gentler on the children in his class than the adults. Most of his interaction with them consisted of making them practise endless precise blows and guards, and then pairing them with another kid to practise sparring, and chewing them out like a drill sergeant if he suspected they weren't at least trying to fight to the death.

Most of Coraline's sessions had been spent paired with Robbie, practising lunges and locks and punches while the screams of the adult students played out in the background. Robbie had the advantage on her in height, but she was naturally quick and strong, and evened a lot of their spars.

Hwai-min was having none of it.

"You!" he said one session several weeks in, while Coraline was throwing punches at Robbie. "You call that a strike? You saw the motions I went through with the others. You practised these motions as a group. Call them back! Put some _effort_ into it!"

His eyes locked onto her, and then onto Robbie.

"You in the stupid hat. Throw a punch."

"I..." Robbie hesitated, then threw a half-hearted punch at her shoulder.

But the motions Hwai-min had mentioned had been drummed surprisingly well into Coraline, and needed only a quick recollection to rouse them from dormancy. For a brief moment, Coraline was both entirely and not totally in control of herself. According to eyewitnesses afterwards, it started "-with you going all, you know, cold and frozen-", ad had ended with Robbie flying spread-eagled into one of the practise mats that had been lined up along the walls.

While Coraline had stood frozen and astounded, every other kid there took a generous step back from her, and Hwai-min had given an almost imperceptible nod of satisfaction before moving off to terrorise a random adult student.

"Oh my god, Robbie, are you okay?" she said, rushing forwards. "I didn't mean to hit that hard, I just..."

"If you see my tooth anywhere, do me a favour and get it, would you?" he had managed to groan. "It'll be good for a buck."

The classes had continued for maybe about a month after that. But then Coraline had had to leave them, when there were financial worries springing up at home. There wasn't any money coming in to fund future classes. And another month after _that_, she had left Pontiac and all her friends behind, and moved to Oregon.

The memories around her unspooled and solidified, taking on more definable forms, taking upon a more solid, forceful character. The loose patchwork of her mind was pulling together, dispelling the fog and restoring her consciousness, piece by piece.

_Coraline?_

And there was another voice. What memory was that coming from?

_Coraline? Speak to me._

It was a little too sharp to come from memory … in fact, it was …

Oh, right. It was from in front of her. Reality was ensuing again, all around her in different shades, all of which spelt pain in her head.

Slowly, the image of a concerned Wybie swam into focus in front of her. She tried to push herself up to drive away the grogginess, and failed miserably.

"Coraline? How many fingers am I holding up?" he said

"I, you, wha? Dunno. Seven?" she hazarded, trying to focus.

"Close enough," he muttered, putting his hand down. His eyes were strained and worried. Coraline looked briefly past him.

They were in a small, dark space enclosed on all sides by dark grey walls that were chill to the touch. A door covered the entire wall to Coraline's left; to her right, a smaller door made up the centre. The air was dry and stale, and Coraline saw Maria leaning against the opposite wall. The space constantly lurched in a violent, rocking motion, as if it were a ship caught in violent waters. From outside, there was the steady drone of cars and countless engines.

Coraline tried to process her surroundings with her freshly awoken brain, brushing the tar off it with applied thought and recollection.

"We're in a van," she said dully.

"Well done, Sherlock," said Wybie.

"And we're being kidnapped."

"And here I was thinking we were being taken to the fair."

"And … I was punched out?"

"They got me with chloroform, I think," said Wybie.

"They used a taser for me," said Maria. She looked as drained as Wybie, if not moreso. "You wouldn't really think a few thousand volts would be something that sent you to sleep, but hey. What do I know."

"How long have I been out?" asked Coraline.

"I have no idea," said Wybie. "Maria woke up first, and she prodded me awake. I've been trying to get you up for maybe twenty minutes."

Coraline squinted at her watch in the gloom. The face was shattered, and the hands were bent into a new and exciting dimension. She must have landed on it when she fell.

"Did you see who got us?" Maria asked of Coraline with sudden urgency.

"A man and a woman. I didn't recognise them. They both wore suits, and mirrored sunglasses." The realisation that had stolen over Coraline when she had first seen them came back upon her. "You … you don't think they were your Beldam's Other people, do you?"

"I don't think, I _know_. Oh God, I brought them here." Maria's face flushed with horror and shame. "They must have followed me, I don't know how, but they-"

"We don't know that," said Coraline, slowly pulling herself upright, using the wall behind her for support. "I mean, maybe your Beldam realised when you'd gone that you must have heard her talking about Ashland. Maybe she was planning on doing it anyway, or maybe my Beldam asked her to. It's not your fault."

"But if I hadn't come to you, then-"

"Look, we can play the blame game later. At the moment, we've got bigger things to worry about." Coraline, now upright, thumbed at the door to her left. "Does that open from the inside?"

"There's no handle and the crack's as thin as a hair. I checked," said Wybie.

"Right," said Coraline dubiously, still studying it.

"Besides, you do realise it would open onto a full highway? Which would, I concede, probably be a quicker way to go than whatever fate's in store for us, but..."

"Way to be optimistic, Wybie." Coraline tried every trick she knew on the door; pulling at the thin gap between the two doors to no avail, pushing on it, applying her shoulder, pleading with it, kicking it, swearing at it, hunting for any sign of give. She only relented when one misapplied yank on the nearly non-existent gap skinned the tips of her fingers.

"God _damn_ it!" she screamed in pain and frustration, and sank to her knees in front of it. Wybie rose to his own feet, and stopped when Coraline started speaking in trembling tones.

"What do they want?" she said in a hollow whisper, fighting to control her voice. "Where are they taking us? To Chicago? To Maria's Beldam?"

"They'll have to let us out at some point," said Maria. "It's … one thousand, six hundred miles from Chicago to Ashland, more or less. They'll have to let us out. They'll have to feed us."

There was a shift in the movement of the space as the van changed gears, and there was a noise from the front as the door leading to the van's seats opened, letting in light from the windows without. Miss Thimble stepped lightly through. Coraline drew back, Wybie stared, and Maria's eyes grew wide with fear.

"We'll be making a stop soon for gas and food," said Miss Thimble brightly, her arms folded across her chest. "Our driver has been persuaded to make this journey with all speed, and to suspend napping or rest stops or obedience to traffic laws wherever possible. The journey shall not be as long it would be normally."

"I will get you food and water at the stop, while my associate makes sure that our driver is on his best behaviour. I expect you all to be on your best behaviour as well. Should any of you-" and she pointed at each of them in turn, "-try to attract attention by shouting or banging on the sides or what have you, then I'll find out who did it. And I will make them watch while I hurt the other two." She smiled. "Unseen. Unheard. Unhurt. Make those your watchwords, children." She stepped back through the door, closing it behind her, while the van slowed.

The three sat in silence. Outside, there were the sounds of muffled conversation and car horns, and the smell of acrid petrol filtered through.

"Evil," whispered Wybie. "She's evil. Her and her associate."

"Not them," said Coraline, despair and fatigue making her too tired to put much effort into it. "Not them. Whoever's directing them. My Beldam and Maria's Beldam. They must be in a partnership."

Presently, there was the sound of the engine starting again, and a moment later, Mr Bodkin this time poked his head through. He dropped a bag onto the floor, and pulled back again without a word. Inside the bag, there were three bottles of water, and three wrapped sandwiches. The portions and bottles were large; obviously, no more stops were planned.

None of them were hungry.

"My grandma must be worried sick," said Wybie. "I can see her now, stamping all over Oregon, brandishing her cane like a weapon and demanding of absolutely everyone "You! Where's that idiot grandson of mine? His supper's getting colder than the darned Arctic Circle!"' He forced humour into his voice, where it was diluted by painful desperation.

"My mom and dad went missing for a while when the Beldam got them. They'll probably be glad it's not them for a change," said Coraline trying and failing at the same injection of humour. The comments were too raw, too close to real thoughts of their desperate parents and keepers.

Neither of them saw the lost, envious look Maria shot in their directions.

Eventually, they made themselves eat part of the sandwiches and some of their water. Then on some unspoken signal, they pulled themselves closer together and began the arduous process of getting some sleep.

Around them, as they strove for a brief moment of rest and escape, the van moved on. It ate up the miles of highway, and passed through state after state in steady progression, its movement still under by control by its panicked, distraught driver.

It ate up the miles between them and Chicago.


	7. Arrival

Day turned to night, and changed the world with it as the van sped on; farmlands turned to tumbling mountains turned to forest turned to rolling grasslands.

The van rocked unsteadily with its hidden cargo and passengers, Isaac's nerves fraying as horrors lurched through his mind. Mr Bodkin sat calmly beside him, holding the gun in his lap, his glasses reflecting the dark, shifting landscapes. Behind them, Miss Thimble reclined in the back, her expression calm and unreadable. And behind her, separated by the thinnest of walls, Coraline, Wybie and Maria tossed and turned in uneasy slumber.

Hours slid by, and miles vanished in their dozens and hundreds, and the sun was beginning a lazy ascension by the time they neared the state line into Illinois.

Isaac's mind was shot from panic and exhaustion. His van had both exceptional speed and mileage, and even then, they had had to make a few stops for gas. Each time, Mr Bodkin had stuck close by him, his gaze cold and deadly, his hand always near his inside pocket. Isaac wondered how he come across to the gas station attendants, with his eyes bloodshot and his voice trembling as he paid for gas and with the man in the suit sticking by him all the while.

By now, he was wishing fervently upon whatever god or gods may or may not exist (Isaac believed in keeping his options open) that he had never taken this job or met those two people, that he had just gone back to his campus with the others from that bar and continued 'studying' for his degree in Liberal Arts. But if wishes were fishes, the oceans would overflow, and Isaac could only mentally torture himself.

All he knew, as he drove on at a speed bordering on the absurd, was that he couldn't let this happen, whatever it was. He had to help these kids get out of there, and screw the money. But he had no idea how, and so the prospect remained as faint and elusive as the stars.

Night turned to day, and forested country turned to a sprawl of suburban homes, which turned by growing degrees into rising towers and a blanket of concrete and stone.

Given new directions by Mr Bodkin on where to go and when to turn, Isaac directed the van into the rising city, through the thronging maze of the streets of Chicago.

* * *

><p>"There's people outside. <em>Lots<em> of people," said Wybie, pressing one ear against the van's side.

"A city, then?" Coraline stood up against the other side. Beside her, Maria paced back and forth, in a carefully measured pattern of steps.

"Uh huh. Do you think it's Chicago?"

"I don't know, I lost track of time." Wybie turned away and did some pacing of his own. "Look, what are we going to do? If they take us to the Beldams or whatever, then … well, I'm guessing nothing _good's_ going to happen. We'll have to make a break for it before that happens."

"Duh."

"How? Do you have a plan? You look like you've been thinking for a while."

"As soon as they open the door, I punch them in the teeth and we make a run for it."

Wybie mulled it over. "It's … simple, I'll give it that much."

"Wybie, we're not exactly spoiled for choice. If you've got anything more subtle and ingenious to spring on them, now's the time to tell."

"...Punch them in the teeth, then?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I suppose if we, or even just one of us gets to a police officer, then..."

There was another lurch as the van turned a corner, and it ground to a slow halt. Coraline looked up and clenched her hands into fists. She hoped it would be the woman who opened the door. She had a chance of stunning her, at least. The man was simply too big.

"Ready?" she whispered. "Get ready to run."

The van seemed to be turning, and the moments dragged by with painful slowness. The three were all tensed and ready to fight, to run.

Finally, the door swung open, and their hearts sank. It was Mr Bodkin, but he was standing a few paces back from the door, well out of punching range, and held a gun by his side. He beckoned, and subtly tilted his gun for emphasis.

"Come ou..." he started.

* * *

><p>Isaac had made his mind up.<p>

He had been directed deep into the city by Mr Bodkin, who had a brief conversation with Miss Thimble.

"Where?" he had asked.

"Lot behind 37th LeGrande," she had replied.

"Empty?"

"Family moved out."

And that had been that. Isaac had finally come to the lot they were presumably talking about, a small, grimy parking space closed off by a high metal fence, encased by tall brick buildings on three sides. He had backed into it through the open gate. Litter lurked furtively in the edges and corners, and the few doors set into the walls were dirty and covered with graffiti.

He had stopped, and Miss Thimble had let herself out the right. Mr Bodkin followed her out the passenger door.

"Stay here," he said, warning in his voice. "You will get your payment once we are finished here."

Isaac had nodded, hardly trusting himself to speak.

Once Mr Bodkin was out of sight around at the back of the van, Isaac went into action. He opened his own door, as quietly as he could, and got out and crept along the side. He saw a length of two-by-four lying on the ground, and his spirits leapt. He seized it up, and, holding in both hands, crept on.

Craning his head around the corner of the van, he saw Mr Bodkin opening the door. Miss Thimble was presumably on the other side.

Breathing in and out in a futile attempt to steady his heart rate, he heard Mr Bodkin begin to say "Come ou..."

That had been the precise moment when Isaac had summoned what was left of his courage, leapt around the corner, and clocked Mr Bodkin square in the temple while yelling "Now! Run!"

Mr Bodkin sprawled in the dirt, caught off guard. The wood tumbled out of Isaac's hands from the force of the blow and landed beside him. Miss Thimble looked up from where she'd been leaning against the wall, and her expression hardened. Her lips curled back in a snarl.

Before Isaac could could react, she sprang at him from across the breadth of the van, her teeth bared, her hands bent like claws. He threw himself back onto his back on the ground in a frantic bid to avoid her, and she hurtled past him into the brick wall, catching herself with her hands.

She wasn't stunned, however, or so much as nursing a broken tooth or finger. And as she pulled herself up, Isaac noted, in complete astonishment, that her fingers left _gouge-marks_ in the brick.

And to his left, as he saw Mr Bodkin trying to restore verticality, the kids made a break for it. The Hispanic girl came out first, yelling "Follow me!" as she shot around past Mr Bodkin. The hunched black kid in the fireman's coat came out after her, and one of his boots caught Mr Bodkin in the ribs as he skidded. The girl with blue hair came last, and as she ran she sent a kick into Mr Bodkin's face that may or may not been intentional. The blow caught him between the eyes, breaking the centre of his mirrored shades.

The two halves fell of his face. Two buttons gleamed in place of eyes, bone-white with a crimson trim and red thread in the centre.

Isaac boggled.

Screw this, whatever it was. This was messed up on a scale hitherto never reached in the entirety of human history.

He threw himself to his feet and broke into a run, checking only that the kids were getting away as well before he ran out the open gate and to freedom.

Mr Bodkin snarled from his prone position and angled his gun with astonishing speed. He aimed at leg level, trying to immobilise one of the kids with a lucky shot. The gun barked once, twice, thrice, the shots deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. Each went wide, sparking off the ground and smashing chunks out of the walls.

The three rounded the corner of the lot and ran out into the city.

Miss Thimble and Mr Bodkin let out the frustrated, hate-filled cries of vengeful hunters and ran out after them at a breakneck pace. Miss Thimble's hands had visibly bent into claws, her nails elongated and curved. Mr Bodkin's button eyes blazed with rage. Neither of them were pretending at humanity any longer.

* * *

><p>"Slow down, slow down, slow down! I said <em>slow down<em>!"

They had ran along what felt like approximately eleventy bajillion miles of city streets, had ducked past and around the same number of surprised pedestrians, had ran across more than one road without stoppng, had gotten tooted at at least three times by surprised drivers, and Coraline's lungs felt like they were about to explode, if not actually catch on fire first.

She and Wybie had followed Maria on a long and convoluted route, with their own furious heart beats and the sounds of imagined pursuit pounding in their heads. It had been impossible to tell whether or not they were actually being followed, the sounds and confusion of the city had been too great for that. It had been all they could do to keep an eye on each other.

But they had managed it, and if they hadn't outrun the man and woman by now, they surely never would. Coraline felt eminently justified in calling for a break.

Maria heard her, and turned back on her heel. Wybie was lagging slightly behind Coraline, and caught up when she stopped. Coraline put out a hand to support her against a nearby lamp post, and began coughing and heaving in great breaths, trying to ignore the stitching down her side. Maria steadied herself against the post as well. Wybie settled for flopping down and sitting up against it.

"They'll have lost us by now," said Coraline between breaths. "They must have lost us by now."

"You don't know that," replied Maria, equally breathlessly. "I mean, what if they can track us or..."

"Then we're hosed. Either way, we're safe, or we'll at least meet them once we've had a rest."

"They shot at us," said Wybie suddenly. "Didn't you hear those shots at the end? The man must have shot at us." Wybie leaned his head back. "Christ. I've never been shot at before. Apart from when my cousin Roddy was testing out his air rifle, and he swore blind that it was an accident..."

"Who was that guy that decked the gunman with the two-by-four?" asked Coraline.

"Maybe it was the driver," said Maria.

"He mus have had a change of heart," said Wybie.

"Right," said Coraline. "Of course, he could have had that change of heart right at the beginning and spared us all this."

"Maybe he didn't know at the start."

"To heck with what he didn't know," snapped Coraline, in no mood to be reasonable, and barely suppressing the urge to put another word in place of 'heck'.

They stopped talking then and simple rested for a bit, breathing in copious amounts of fresh air and ignoring the odd looks they got from passers-by. There was a lot of them; this was the high point of the day on Monday for commuting and dealing in Chicago.

Chicago stirred, in the manner of all cities, like an ant's nest. Businessmen and crooks and commuters thronged on the streets, hogging the pavements and avenues. Cars hooted and roared along the roads and boulevards in shrieking masses, overshadowed by lamp posts like predatory birds. Posters covered walls, bunting stretched between several posts from some forgotten festival. Windows stared down like stalking, amber-lit eyes in grey expanses, and above it all, skyscrapers snared low-hanging clouds. They and the flocks of city birds were the only ones above it all.

It was vast and powerful and bustling and noisy, and eclipsed the children completely.

"Right. I have a plan," said Coraline.

"Super. Plans are always fun," said Wybie.

"First, we go find somewhere we can get something to eat," she said, rummaging in her pocket for a few faded dollar bills. "I'm starving. I don't know about you two."

"Thus far, I like this plan," said Wybie. "Then what?"

"Then we find out what the hell's going on in Chicago."

* * *

><p>They had searched unceasingly, to no avail.<p>

They both knew that finding them was vital, that their lady only valued them so long as they returned results.

And they both knew that _she _was getting impatient. They knew it like one of their senses, like a compulsion that bit at them to the core. She was getting angry. She wanted the children.

Mr Bodkin stopped when the itch grew too painful to bear, and Miss Thimble stopped beside him. They got a few stares from people, who started when they saw Mr Bodkin's eyes. They almost invariably rushed off immediately after to book a meeting with a psychotherapist.

"It hurts," muttered Mr Bodkin, echoing Miss Thimble's own thoughts. "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Why won't she give us time? We can retrieve them in time. We must have that time."

"But we won't have it," said Miss Thimble. "She will get so angry that she will force us back. And if she has to do that, then she will be furious beyond all thought. She will kill us."

"So we go to her now and explain to her. She might listen," said Mr Bodkin, without much hope.

"_We_ won't explain," said Miss Thimble, placing her hand on top of Mr Bodkin's.

Mr Bodkin's face creased in confusion, then in dawning horror.

"If you go alone to explain, she will take out her anger on you," he whispered fiercely. "She won't spare you. Please, I'll go to her..."

"She will do nothing to me that she wouldn't do to both of us," said Miss Thimble. "And if she knows that you are still searching, then she will permit you a little more time. She may be merciful to us."

"That is not in her nature."

"But I must hope." She pressed her hand a little more firmly into his own, and pulled off her own glasses and pressed them onto his face. "Search. I will go to her and get you time."

She then moved off, and Mr Bodkin stared after her miserably. He then looked back along the street and marched off, still searching , his determination forcing him past the pain.


	8. Perdido

"Attention. Attention. I hereby call this meeting to order," said Coraline with a swig of soda.

"Point of order, chair," said Wybie around a mouthful of pizza. "If we're having a meeting, shouldn't we actually be an organisation? Preferably one with an awesome name. I suggest 'The Avengers'. All in favour?"

"Let the record show that Wybie had every opportunity to shut up, and took none of them." Coraline aimed a light kick at Wybie from under the table, which connected with an aggrieved "Ow, what?" from Wybie.

Maria studied them dubiously for a moment over her glass of soda before saying "Do you guys go on like this all the time?"

The exhaustion and fear they had felt once they had stopped running had, invariably, been replaced completely with a kind of giddy euphoria once they realised they weren't being followed, that they had lost their sinister pursuers in the streets. Although that initial euphoria was faded, it was still present in their cheer and humour. When you've escaped a prolonged captivity from inhuman captors, then you can't help but feel positive.

As if that weren't enough, they had also discovered a small pizza bistro along one of the busy streaming streets. It was small and compact, with only a handful of tables inside it, and it specialised in Chicago-style deep dish pizzas. It was practically empty; the only person in there besides Coraline, Wybie and Maria was the girl behind the counter, who absently counted coins in the cash register and quietly crooned along with her headphones.

Now they sat around one of the circular tables covered with a green-red checked tablecloth, with a communal pizza sitting in the centre and flanked by three tall sodas. Wide windows opened onto the city while keeping it apart, making its sounds muted and events at a distance.

"What? Me getting hit? Yeah, that happens a lot," said Wybie.

"He usually deserves it, though," said Coraline.

"You're the very soul of kindness, I've always thought," said Wybie, shifting a little in his chair. "So, what are we doing?"

"We're eating pizza. And drinking soda. Keep up, Wybie."

"Hilarious. No, I mean, what are we going to do? Are we going to the police? Calling our folks? We shouldn't be here."

Coraline cast her gaze down, and sipped at the rim of her glass. Outside, a cloud passed in front of the sun and darkened the street briefly.

"I've been thinking about this," she said, quietly. "And I don't think we should leave. At least, not right away."

Maria frowned at her, and Wybie tilted his head quizzically.

"...Explain?" he asked.

"Look," began Coraline, "We know that there's a Beldam here in Chicago. We know that my Beldam's here as well. And we know that they're working together to get us. No arguments there."

Maria and Wybie nodded.

"Maria escaped her Beldam, and her Beldam followed her all the way to Ashland, and told her servants to take us well. That means that her Beldam knows about us. And because she's working with my Beldam, that means she knows about _our families_."

"Wait," said Wybie. "You're … you're not saying ..."

"I'm speaking from experience here, Wybie. When the Beldam took my parents..."

"Which Beldam?" interjected Maria, confused.

"Whi … my Beldam. Why?"

"Just checking," said Maria. "Look, maybe we should give them different names. Otherwise, our conversations are going to get pretty confusing."

"That's … okay, that's a good idea. My Beldam can stay the 'Beldam'. And your Beldam... did she ever call herself something else when you were around?"

"No. Other than 'Mother', but she doesn't deserve that name, I think."

"Fine. We'll call her-" Coraline hesitated while her mind rummaged for a good name. One of the random memories, thrown up for whatever strange reasons, was of Mr B. chasing after his mouse on that beaten dirt track, crying out "Pa-dazh-di!"

"The Czarina," she decided. "That appropriate?"

"Okay. The Czarina."

"Right. So the Beldam took my parents to try and lure me back. She knew it would work. And if she's working with the Czarina, what's going to stop her playing the same trick to make us come back to Chicago?"

Wybie blanched when he thought of his grandma, seized up by whatever monster lurked in Chicago. Coraline brooded, her own memories of her time alone coming back to her. Maria looked from one to the other, alarm and guilt on her face. She was appalled by the thought that she might have endangered their families.

"We can't leave," Coraline said quietly and with unmistakeable strength. "Not when the Beldam and Czarina can hurt my mom and dad, or your grandma, or anyone, so long as it keeps us coming back to this city, and to her lair."

"So if we can't leave, what do we do?" said Wybie. He had shifted again in his chair.

"I said that if we left, the Czarina would take our parents and make us come back. I say we cut out the middleman."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we pool what we know, get some stuff, go to where Maria met her, find the Czarina in her Other World, and kick her ass into dust," said Coraline, and took a gulp of her soda.

* * *

><p>Maria looked at Coraline with pensive excitement at the idea. Wybie nodded, uncertainly.<p>

"So how do we do that?" he said. "Are there special weapons you can use? Did your Beldam have a weakness you could exploit?"

"This is where that 'pool what we know' thing comes into play," said Coraline, taking out a clean paper napkin. "Do you have a pencil or something?"

Wybie drew out a pencil from one of his coat's innumerable pockets. Coraline set it to the spread out napkin and jotted the points as she spoke them, keeping her mind focused.

"Okay, numero one. We know that there's a Beldam, the Czarina, who lives here in Chicago and preys on it."

"Number two: We know that my Beldam, the one Wybie and I fought in Ashland, has gone to the Czarina for help."

"If she's picked her out for help, then they might be family, or something like it," said Wybie. "Or maybe the Czarina's especially powerful, and can spare the help she gives."

Coraline frowned. "That's true. I'll make a note. Number three: we know that the Czarina has two … basically, they're puppets that look like and act like people. At least two."

"Two which beat us senseless without even a fight," said Wybie.

"Right, when we weren't expecting them. Next time, we will be." Coraline pressed especially hard on the napkin with the pencil, and cursed when it tore through the paper.

"My Be … The Czarina has her lair in the Merchandise Mart, make a note of that," said Maria. She steepled her fingers together and said, absently, "That's funny."

"What is?" said Coraline, writing around the rip in the paper.

"Because where we stopped was blocks and blocks away from the Merchandise Mart." Maria drummed her fingertips together. "They surely weren't going to walk us all the way across the city, were they?"

Coraline's frown deepened. "That is odd." She scribbled at the edge of the napkin. "Is there something here we're missing? There must be."

"You think it over," said Wybie quickly. "I'm just going to the bathroom." He picked himself out of his seat and walked through the bistro to the bathroom at the back, scratching irritably at his back as he went. Coraline stared after him, then turned back to the napkin. Her face lit up with a sudden memory and flash of inspiration.

"Souls!"

"Beg pardon?" said Maria.

"That's what the Beldam was drawing her power from," said Coraline. "I won all three souls she had in her keeping, from three children she'd taken before. When I was running from her with them, she screamed "I'll die without you!" That's what she eats, what she needs. The souls of kids."

Maria shuddered. "And if we managed to take the souls the Czarina has in her keeping..."

"Then we'd starve her out, and the Beldam with her. We'd beat her, and free the children as well." Coraline's eyes were practically dancing now with the prospect of a workable plan. "She'd have three, maybe a couple more if she's more powerful like Wybie says. When you were there, did you see anything small and circular, about the size of a ping-pong ball? Or did any ghost-children speak to you?"

"No, nothing like that. But there were a lot of places I didn't enter. Her Other World was basically one big building, and it was huge. There were a lot of places you could hide something."

"Okay, so we have a plan at least," said Coraline, pleased with herself. "Get the souls. We could challenge her to a game for them, maybe an exploring game like I won before. If we pull it off..."

There was the faint whisper of the slightly ajar bistro door opening a little wider, letting in a little more noise from the outside. Coraline and Maria turned their heads to see who had entered, instantly alert.

It wasn't Miss Thimble or Mr Bodkin, however, or anything like them. It was a battered-looking tuxedo cat, black all over but for white markings at the chest and paws. It glided over the floor on four silent feet, and looked up at Coraline and Maria and mewed.

"Hello," said Coraline. "Who's a good kitty? Do you want a bit of pepperoni?"

The cat looked at her impassively with large olive eyes, and mewed again. Coraline once again felt the pangs of recollection.

"Coraline? You're looking awfully strangely at the cat," said Maria.

Coraline ignored her and dropped to one knee beside the cat.

"If you're trying to give me a message, nod once. If you want me to follow you, nod twice," she said seriously.

Maria stared at her with the expression of one who suddenly feels that they're the only sane person in a world like a madhouse. It was an expression she wore often.

"Coraline, _why_ are you-"

"Maria, just trust me," Coraline hissed. "Cats … I think cats know about this. About Beldams. One helped me in Ashland." She watched the cat intently.

The tuxedo cat looked up at her and then, with careful deliberation, nodded twice.

"Maria, stay here with the cat," Coraline ordered, standing up. "I'm going to get Wybie. We have to go with that cat."

"You … the cat, what?"

"I'll just be a second," said Coraline, walking briskly to the bathroom.

"What?" Maria implored again, to no avail. She looked down at the cat, which looked back with the insufferable self-confidence common to all cats.

* * *

><p>Coraline quickly knocked twice on the bathroom door, then threw it open and entered.<p>

"Wybie? We've just ..." she began, and then stopped.

The bathroom was small, clean, and made to be unisex. A urinal rose from the far wall, two old fashioned stalls ran along the right, and a sink and stack of towels sat to the left. Bright electric lighting ran overhead.

Wybie wasn't using the facilities when Coraline entered. He was standing in the middle, with his fireman's coat lying on the floor nearby. He turned, surprised by Coraline's entrance.

He was startlingly skinny without the coat, Coraline realised. Beneath, he wore only a thin, khaki-coloured, long-sleeved top, which hung loosely in some places and showed his thin chest clearly enough in others.

What it also showed, and what Wybie had been trying to hide, was the sharply defined and rigid lines of a back brace beneath the thin fabric. He had been trying to adjust it when Coraline entered.

He stood silent and ashamed, anger flaring and dying in his eyes before he turned abruptly away, and grabbed for his coat on the ground. Coraline saw him wince as he bent sharply down.

"You ever heard of _knocking_, Jonesy?" he muttered, pulling his arms back through the sleeves.

Coraline let the door close quietly behind her. She tried to find something to say.

"Remember you asked me why I wear the coat all the time?" he said. "Well, this is why. Because I was born with a screwed spine, and I have to wear a brace all the time so that, given a few damn years or so, it'll finally fix itself. I've been wearing it since I was a kid. If I don't, it's honest-to-god hard for me to stand. And if I do wear it, then it itches like hell half the time, and I'm waiting for it to itch like hell the other half. Does that answer all your questions?"

There was a bitter, controlled cadence to his voice that she'd never expected to hear, a brittle anger tempered with shame. She tried to find something to say.

"It's nothing to be ashamed about," she said softly. "I knew a kid back in Pontiac, who was born with brittle bones in his legs. He needed leg braces and walked with crutches all the time, and we didn't think any less of him for it. Heck, he was a member of my gang, the Hubcaps. He could belch the national anthem, even. You have to respect someone who can do that."

"Well, it looks like we're all not as _lucky_ as your kid in Pontiac," said Wybie with sudden, violent spite, and he finished drawing his coat tightly around him, and fastened it up. He worked in silent anger, and Coraline stood by, feeling at least as humiliated as she thought Wybie felt.

He finished, and didn't storm out or anything. He just stood there, keeping his face away from hers.

"When I started kindergarten for the first time, I had just moved in with my grandma," he started, slowly, hesitantly, "My mom and dad had died a few months ago in a car crash on a highway outside Portland, I think. I can't remember much about it. Anyway, I went to kindergarten, and I was wearing the back brace, and clothes that weren't heavy enough to cover it. Some of the other kids there saw, and when we went outside for a break, they got together in a group and tried to take it off. I always wore coats after that. I only grew big enough for this last year."

Coraline stepped forward and took his hand in hers, gently. He looked down at it, startled.

"Those kids were grade-A assholes," she said, equally gently. He looked away from her, but he didn't push away from her, nor did he release her hand.

"I just got into the habit of not showing it, you know? My grandma made sure I kept covered up as well. I didn't want that to happen again, ever. And I guess I just pushed away other people at the same time."

Coraline gripped his hand a little tighter.

"I don't care that you wear a back brace," she said. "All I care is that you're a friend, and you saved my life when I had no one else to turn to. You tried to make friends with a lonely out-of-state girl, even when she treated you like dirt. You're my best friend, and that's all that matters."

He met her gaze. "All that matters?"

"Yeah," she said, and meant it.

They held the grip for a couple more moments, then Wybie coughed and turned away.

"Anyway, that's why I wear the coat," he said. "It's still not the only reason, though. It's still an awesome coat by any standard."

"It's a _great_ coat," Coraline reassured him.

"It's a family heirloom," he said with pride. "It belonged to my grandpa when he was still alive. He was the first black fireman on the Ashland force. He saved a whole family while wearing this."

"Some history," said Coraline admiringly.

"It is, it sure is," he nodded enthusiastically. "Not only that, but he also...um...Coraline?" Now it was her turn to look away uncomfortably.

"What is it?" he said

"Its … to heck with it, so long as we're being honest with each other," started Coraline. "Wybie … you know how the people who brought us here were made by the Czarina?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, back in Ashland … my Beldam had made people as well. Clones of people I knew around the Pink Palace. My folks, Miss Spink and Forcible, Mr Bobinsky." She hesitated before adding "And you. She'd made your double to be a friend for me."

"Really? Another me?" Wybie mulled it over, before saying "Bet he wasn't nearly as handsome as the real me, though."

"She'd stitched his mouth shut so he couldn't talk. And he died to let me escape her."

Wybie opened his mouth, and then shut it.

"Did my talking really annoy you that much?" he said quietly. "I … guess Slugzilla might not have been much of a conversation piece, now I look back on it."

"But we're friends now," said Coraline. "I'm sorry I was rude to you at the start. I wasn't happy with anything, really. But I'll do better than that from now on."

Wybie looked her in the eyes, and she met his gaze. Then he smiled. "I believe you. And I trust you."

There came an abrupt knocking from outside the door. Maria's voice came through. "Uh, Coraline, Wybie? The cat's getting kind of impatient."

Wybie blinked. "The … cat?"

"Oh, yeah, that was what I came in here to tell you. There's a cat waiting outside. It wants us to follow it to somewhere it can tell us all about the Czarina."

Wybie's expression said "?".

"Look, just trust me. And follow me." She rushed out, and Wybie trailed after her, baffled.

Maria was waiting for them, the cat at her feet. It looked up at Coraline, and _mrowl_ed disapprovingly in the back of its throat.

"I was busy, alright? Just lead on," snapped Coraline. The cat turned and walked out at a brisk walk. Coraline marched off after it. Wybie and Maria exchanged confused looks.

"Wha..." she began.

"I'm just rolling with it," he responded, walking off after Coraline. Maria followed him.

They followed the cat through busy streets, across short stretches of road, and once through a park. If the sight of three kids following a cat was in any way unusual for Chicago, nobody commented on it. The cat walked on, under the shadow of rising buildings, through old quarters, into deeper parts of the city.

Finally, it led them to a dingy alleyway. The walls on all sides were covered with battered plaster, and cracked paving stones ran all the way up it, terminating at what looked like an old sewer grill, which opened into the ground.

The cat gave them a significant look and jumped down into it. They reluctantly followed.

They clambered down, and found themselves on solid ground in a sloping stretch of tunnel. It ran down into darkness, and sparking wires which ran along the ceiling provided weak and intermittent light. The cat was a barely glimpsed shadow running ahead of them. They followed it as best they could down the sloping tunnel, steadying themselves against the walls with both hands.

"This must be the undercity," said Wybie in an echoing, excited whisper. "Cities don't always just sring up on empty ground. Some of them, especially the older ones, build on top of themselves. You'll find layers upon layers of city in some of the oldest ones, all on top of each other like layers in a wedding cake. This must be part of Chicago's."

"Why is it leading us down here?" said Coraline. "Is there something it wants us to see, or to do?"

"The question is, why are we following it at all?" said Maria. "What's important about this cat?"

"Not just this cat. All cats, I think. Wybie, remember the cat back in Ashland? He could travel to the Other World, and talk while he was there. He helped me out, and I think this cat wants to do the same."

Wybie looked dubious. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!"

"It's just … well, Beldams are one thing. Talking cats are another. I mean, I always knew the cat in Ashland was always pretty intelligent, but I didn't think he could actually _talk_..."

The cat suddenly stopped in a patch of flickering light, and turned to regard them. Coraline returned the look.

"Is this it?" she asked the cat.

"You know, I've always heard people say that talking to a cat's the first sign of madness," said Wybie.

"Wybie, shush."

"The second sign's usually when the cat starts talking back," he said cheerfully.

"Now if that isn't a good lead-in," said the cat abruptly, in a rolling, rich baritone, "Then I don't know what is."

The only sound in the tunnel then was the sound of Wybie's strangled "Glerk."

The cat tilted his head. "This is a bit odd for you, all things considered. I can appreciate that. I just thought you might to be appraised of our ability to talk to you in this place. It'll help prepare you for what's about to come. Why are you turning purple?"

Maria stood with her mouth wide open and gawping, Coraline was too preoccupied cackling into her fist, and so it fell to the utterly flummoxed Wybie to almost scream "How can you _talk_?"

"Same way you can," said the cat. "I just expel air and move my mouth and tongue about, and it practically does itself. Oh, wait, you meant in a different sense. Well," it chuckled, "You'll get a fuller explanation for that in a moment. Suffice to say for now that in some places, reality as you know it is a little … ah, thin on the ground."

"I, you, that's, I, what, clouds." Wybie's brain had temporarily turned all energies over to curling in the foetal position in a corner of his skull. Coraline took the lead.

"So where are you taking us?"

"Through here," said the cat, and motioned at the dark space behind it.

Coraline stepped past, and found that it was an opening for a much larger room, all of which was hidden by pitch blackness. But the room seemed a little warmer than usual, and she felt that there was something else inside it with her.

Then a crisp, dry voice said "Pat the switch, sibling."

There was a mewing sound from beside Coraline, and something batted the light switch on the wall into an on position. And around her, Coraline saw the room revealed. It could have once been an old storage room, and still showed signs of storage. Stained, rotten wooden barrels sprouted all around her, nestled around pitted grey walls. And perched on these barrels, sitting on the floor, prowling around her, there were dozens upon dozens of cats.

Alley-toms, their skins scarred and fur tufted with dried blood, sat side by side with sleek white Persians. Kittens, clearly bored with the proceedings, bounded and played on the floor. Tabbies, calicoes, manxes, Scottish Folds, American Curls, Russian Blues, and others from countless different breeds stood and sat and lay attention, nearly all of them watching the three with an unnerving intensity.

From in front of Coraline, the cat who had given the order to turn on the lights sat regally on the foremost barrel. It had a smoky grey coat, and dark brown eyes made luminous by the light.

"It's been a while since we've had humans present at a Grimalkin Council," it started in a voice that was most likely male, in the same dry tones. "Pardon us if we neglect some of the usual formalities." It tilted one corner of its mouth in a wry smirk, and from all around it, there was a chorus of dry, cattish laughs.

"Now, you're probably wondering what exactly you're doing here," the cat said, staring straight at Coraline. "And it so happens that we were planning on asking you that very same question _ourselves_."

Before she could respond, Wybie cleared his throat, and all attention in the room shifted instantly to him.

"I have to ask," he said, hesitantly. "Has the entire universe gone mad lately, or is it just me?"


	9. Felidae

The multitudinous watching eyes blinked at Wybie and then passed him over, refocusing on Coraline, glimmering like innumerable jewels in the dullness of the room. The smoky grey cat stared right at Coraline, meeting her gaze unblinkingly. It wished a response to its question.

"You obviously know, or you wouldn't have brought us here," said Coraline. "It's about the Beldams here in Chicago. I already cats can talk in Other Worlds … and here as well, apparently. I met one of you in Ashland."

"Ah," sighed a silky-furred Persian sitting to Coraline's right. "Him in Ashland. Do give him our fondest regards once you go back there." There was a chorus of quiet assent, and an equal and opposite chorus of mutters and grumbles.

"We heard he helped humans drive off a Beldam," said a one-eared feral cat perched on a barrel. "And we knew that that Beldam had fled here. She could not have chosen a more secure place to come."

Coraline looked round at the assembly. Tomcats regarded her and Maria and Wybie with grim, suspicious eyes; while kittens ventured closer. One Siamese kitten tripped over in its haste and fell onto Maria's shoe. The girl reached down to stroke the little creature, which batted at her hand with a pin-tipped paw while mewling "Fight! Fight!"

"Help me get up to speed," said Coraline. "What is this place? Why can you talk here?"

"This … is a place where the reality you know has worn a little thin, for whatever reasons. It's an ancient place by this city's terms, and there's been plenty of opportunities for sur-reality to bleed through. It's a place where rules aren't broken, they just work a little sideways to normal. It's a place where the creatures of sur-reality can exert some influence. And, more saliently, it's where our kind can make ourselves understood to humans."

"Okay," said Coraline uncertainly. She had no doubt that considering what the cat was saying could have the potential to overturn … well, everything that had seemed real in the past. But that was another problem, and she's just deal with that as it came. "Who are all of you? What is this?"

"We are the cats of Chicago," said the leading grey cat. "A little portion of our total number at any rate. And this is the Grimalkin Council for Chicago, accorded territory where we can convene to discuss matters of importance, resolve disputes." Its eyes flattened slightly. "Handle newcomers."

"And who are you? Their king?"

"Nothing so grandiose. I'm merely the First Speaker by popular assent. We don't … _do_ monarchies as a species," said the cat with distaste. "Republics are much more to our tastes. Anarchical republics, at that."

"Right. And your name is …?"

"As a species, we also don't do names. That's a human tendency." A note of scorn entered his voice. "We know who we are. We know the identities of each other. These do not require labels. But..." The First Speaker paused and sighed. "If it will really assist your communication, then I suppose you may address us by the human-given names on our collars."

Most of the cats wore collars, and Coraline wondered briefly if their owners had any idea where their cats were at the moment. Coraline looked at the First Speaker's collar.

"Fluffletuff?" she enquired.

"Yes," he said in tones about as warm and welcoming as a thrown knife. There were some badly concealed coughs from behind him.

"Fluffletuff?"

"When I was taken in as a kit by a human family, they had a child. A toddler. It was, inadvisedly in my view, given naming rights."

"Ah."

"It is an affectation bestowed by humans to assist them with identification," Fluffletuff snapped. "The word, although humorous to those of a childish disposition, is meaningless. It is non-essential to my identity as one of Grimalkind, and it in no way denigrates the dignity of my office as First Speaker."

"Of course."

"We are dropping this subject now."

"Sure we are."

"Are you laughing?" he accused.

"Me? Oh, no," said Coraline, hiding her mouth behind a gloved hand.

"Anyway," Fluffletuff continued sharply, "Onto more relevant topics. You have come here seeking Beldams."

"Well, technically, we were brought here by creatures of the Czarina..."

"Who?"

"The Beldam here. We called her the Czarina to separate her from the Beldam in Ashland. But you're right. We're looking for the Beldam and Czarina."

"More meaningless names," he muttered, then looked at the three with renewed intensity.

"And you now seek this … Czarina? For revenge? To free the souls in her possession? To prove something to yourselves?"

"There's a lot of reasons," said Coraline, folding her arms. "And if we said we were after her, for whatever reasons, then would you help us?"

Fluffletuff cast his gaze around the room, rising slowly to all four legs. Other cats returned it, particularly the tuxedo cat from earlier (whose collar read _Shane_) who seemed almost to glare at Fluffletuff. A palpable atmosphere of tension and fear had seemed to enter room upon Coraline's question. The cats were milling uncertainly, those who were standing; others drew slightly away and muttered amongst themselves. A kitten in the crowd began mewling quietly.

"I advise you strongly to leave this city and never come back," said Fluffletuff with a quiet, serious intensity. "Forget this mission of yours. It is a mission that will bring you no honour, no prestige, has no chance of success."

"What do you mean?"

"He means to forget what is right and to run," spat Shane the tuxedo cat. "He is so crippled by his fear that he would rather..."

"_Silence!_" hissed Fluffletuff at Shane, accompanying it with an arched back and bristling fur. Shane quieted, but the fire didn't leave his eyes.

"You are not prepared for what lies under this city," said Fluffletuff, composing himself and turning back to the three. "I don't care what you did in Ashland. I don't care what you accomplished against one Beldam with the aid of one of us. Whatever you learned there will mean _nothing_."

"If you try to find this Czarina … then you will _die_. All of you. In the greatest of agony that this city's greatest monster can create."

* * *

><p>Coraline might have laughed in the cat's face, assured it that she didn't die in Ashland and she wouldn't here either, that she was sure that the Czarina could not be all that different from the Beldam...<p>

...But looking at the naked fear on the faces of many of the cats present, she was not so sure after all.

The cat in Ashland had sauntered in and out of the Beldam's home turf, had regarded challenging her as a game, and cared nothing for the repercussions of killing her rat servants. If he feared her at all, it showed only in the wary respect paid to any foe capable of killing you if you messed up.

But all of these cats, numbering in the dozens if not hundreds, some of whom were covered in yards of scar tissue, seemed to be almost struck dumb with terror at the mere mention of the Czarina.

"Why?" said Coraline ventured. The cats stared, confused. "Why can't Ashland be compared to Chicago, Beldam-wise? What's so different about the Czarina?"

Fluffletuff took a moment to steady himself.

"In Ashland, your Beldam had a number of souls in her possession, didn't she?"

"She did. They were the souls of kids she'd trapped over the years, who'd stayed at the Pink Palace. A pioneer girl, a boy, and Wybie's great-aunt. I guess they're what Beldams feed upon. I got all three of them out when I challenged her."

There was no response, save a general shuffling and many nervous glances back and forth between the cats. One muttered "Not bad, for a human," to which there was a general murmur of consent.

Finally, Fluffletuff heaved a sigh, and nodded at another cat lying on the floor. She looked up and blinked, a dour-looking tortoiseshell whose eyes were milky with age. The tag dangling from her faded leather collar read _Harper_.

"Your Beldam had taken the children from one house for a hundred and fifty years," Harper began in a frail, trembling voice. "She took that house as her territory, as her niche from which she could predate at will. Her corner of the supernatural world, from which she would draw her power. She had the power to draw in the children who stayed there, in that one location."

"But the Czarina did something different, when she finally settled on to begin her hunt-cycle. She didn't take a house. She took a railway station as her realm. One of the first of its kind in Chicago."

Coraline blinked. "How the heck could that ..."

"Because when she took the station, it was during the beginning time of the railway boom, and during the beginnings of Chicago. Do you understand what that means? She had access to a constant and _unlimited_ stream of immigrants and settlers and the lost and dispossessed for all of the city's formation. People. Families. _Children_."

"She was voracious. She lured and sewed buttons and took souls and killed, one after the other after the other, and what did it matter? People always fell between the cracks, and nobody could have possibly imagined where they went. Chalk up one more vanished child and move on. And she took so many children that she could afford to expand outwards, to send out other routes to her lair in other parts of the city. She opened doors in more than one building. She had the energy to seek out children all across the city, in every house, for every family, wherever children set step. She sat at the centre of a city-web, with the station as its heart."

"So she..." said Coraline, horrified realisation dawning.

"She has had access to all of Chicago for the past century. And she has become an architect of horror the likes of which this city has never seen rivalled." Fluffletuff stopped briefly to let that sink in. The words echoed in the deafening silence of the room. "What had your Beldam taken? Four children? Three? The Czarina has taken more than_ three hundred_. And though she doesn't need to anymore, she keeps on feeding."

"Someone must have noticed," Wybie said weakly. "You can't have so many kids disappearing without someone noticing..."

"Can't you? She's careful. She takes at irregular intervals, she can afford to let months and years pass before she feeds. And she takes the lost. She takes those who would have fallen between the cracks, those who are ignored, those whom nobody will mourn. She takes those whose disappearance fails to incite outrage or lead to manhunts. And often enough other humans are blamed, and the disappearance is resolved." Fluffletuff smiled a thin, cold smile. "She knows humans all too well."

"What does this add up to in terms of actual power?" asked Coraline. "Is she too powerful to be challenged at all?"

"Yes. We know that from bitter experience."

"Why? What happened?"

Fluffletuff hesitated before beginning the tale. "You know from Ashland that we Grimalkind have an … interest in helping humans. Some of us take it on ourselves to fight Beldams and others of their kind. A few years ago, one of our number was sick to death of the fear she kindled in us. He wouldn't stand for it, and he decided to take some of our best to settle the matter with her once and for all."

"What happened to him?" said Coraline.

"Well, he got support from a majority of the Council. He got twelve volunteers, twelve of our best and brightest and most cunning fighters. And he himself was the strongest of them, the king of the alleys and winner of a hundred fights with other cats and even dogs on occasion. If he couldn't succeed, who could? He took his twelve. He found one of the many routes into her lair, and followed it down with all his clowder."

"The Czarina returned them in due course. She mutilated them, wrung their necks, and hung each of them by their tails from the fronts of thirteen entrances to her lair. As a _warning_."

Ghastly images and implications ran through Coraline's mind, neither of which she particularly wanted to see. To her left, she saw Maria blanch. Wybie shuddered.

"_That's_ what you're dealing with, human," said Fluffletuff. "She's more powerful by vast orders of magnitude than anything you've experienced. Don't challenge her. Save yourselves, and keep your lives and souls."

Shane made a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. "And deny what our brother fought for? If there is anything worth fighting in this world, it is this 'Czarina'. You shame his memory when you use him as an excuse to meekly yield."

"That's enough," hissed Fluffletuff. He looked up at the three. "Shane … clings to a fool's hope that the Czarina can be fought. But humans and Grimalkind alike have had two centuries to do so, and we've failed every time."

"When you fight for what is right, then failure is no excuse to ever stop trying," growled Shane. "I brought them here because I thought they could help."

"And send them to their deaths, or worse?" Fluffletuff said scornfully.

Shane's eyes blazed, and he kept his mouth shut. Although a few amongst the crowd of cats seemed to look at him with sympathy, and at Fluffletuff with anger, the vast majority hung their heads in silent shame, with equal helplessness to do what other cats had always done.

"Leave, for your own sakes," said Fluffletuff. "This isn't a fight you can win."

Coraline had never believed that phrase, and she wasn't about to start now.

"We're not going into this blind," she insisted. "We know about them, and we now know more about the Czarina than when we first came, thanks to you. And I know how we can beat her. We just have to take the souls of the children she's taken, and set them all free."

Fluffletuff studied her with narrowed eyes. Then he just looked away, and looked impossibly tired and sad.

"If you insist on doing this, then we cannot stop you. All I can do is hope that you see reason."

"Come with us," Coraline suggested. "Have you ever had human help in challenging the Czarina before? If we work together, we could take her down."

"If we work together, then she will kill us all together with one stroke." He turned to Maria. "You. You were her last victim, were you not? You saw her power and terror at close quarters. Why are you going back? I don't understand."

"Because if I don't, the Czarina will never be stopped. And she'll never stop taking children." The words were delivered shyly, awkwardly, too quickly, but the conviction behind them was unmistakeable. Coraline and Wybie looked round at her, and she continued playing with the kitten.

Fluffletuff looked at the three despairingly, and then sighed. "Then you shall be escorted out. I don't think anything more can be achieved here." He nodded at a cat sitting by the door. The cat, a scruffy tabby which had ignored the proceedings in favour of grooming itself, rose and stretched. It nodded from Coraline, Wybie and Maria to the door, and strutted through.

Wybie turned and walked after it, pausing only once to stare once more at the cats, and then walked through. Maria reluctantly pulled away from the kitten and followed him. Coraline was the last to walk through, and before she did, she turned to Fluffletuff.

"Last chance," she said. "Will you come with us?"

"No. We will not lose any more to the Czarina. We have lost too much already."

Coraline left without another word.

Shane made as if to follow her.

"Don't," said Fluffletuff to him, softly. "Throwing yourself into certain death won't bring our fallen back. Leave it be."

Shane settled. But he kept his eyes on the door.

* * *

><p>The journey back up into Chicago was longer than the journey down. They followed different passages, different sloping tunnels, with a different guide. They cut through the sewer system, and followed forgotten routes through the basements of buildings. The tabby didn't speak, and Coraline got the impression that it wouldn't have even if it could.<p>

Eventually, they came out of a door in a rubbish-strewn alley. The three clambered out. The tabby watched them leave, and then slunk back into the opening.

The topside of Chicago, it went without saying, was lighter and more open and airier than the undercity. But for all the city's brightness and bustle, what they had learned in its subterranean depths put everything in a darker light. Each shadow cast by the towering buildings cast a darker shadow over their minds, a pall of fear created by the knowledge of the lurking Czarina. Each tower-spike was a grasping claw, each window was an eye stalking their progress.

"So I ask again, what are we going to do?" said Wybie as they walked down a tree-lined street, low-hanging branches clipping at their heads.

"Good to see you've recovered," said Coraline.

"I'll be okay so long as I don't actually _acknowledge_ that we just talked to a council of cats beneath Chicago … ah, no, damn. So, what are we going to do?"

"What we were always planning on doing," said Coraline. "We suit up. We go to where Maria met her. And we get the souls out. That's our priority."

"But what about what they said? I mean, they'd know more about Beldams than us, and they really seem to think we're in over our heads."

"That's true," Coraline conceded. The meeting with the Grimalkin Council had, although she wouldn't admit it, left her extremely rattled. When the cat had approached her in the bistro, she'd immediately thought that a cat would once more help them with taking the Beldams down. And when the cat had led her to a full council of its species, her mind had been aglow with the possibilities. She'd thought they wouldn't be alone. She'd thought they'd have an _army_ on their side.

But they were still as alone as they'd ever been. And not only were they alone, the enemy they'd decided to fight was more terrible than they'd imagined. The fear of the cats had been transparent. And from Fluffletuff, who had been the most reserved of them, the terror had perhaps radiated the most strongly.

Was that a reason to quit?, she wondered. If you were confronted with a situation like that, wouldn't it be sensible to just cut your losses, leave the city behind, and go home? Was the mind-breaking scale of the odds a reason to give up?

Was it hell. But that didn't stop her feeling scared.

But then, she'd been scared out of her mind when she'd gone to get her parents back from the Beldam, and she'd mastered her fear, had gone on in spite of it.

"I'm going on anyway," she said. "But this isn't your fight, Wybie. You don't have to come with me."

"Oh, please. You'll need at least one smart person on this mission," he said, and took the punch to the shoulder she sent his way.

"I'm not just doing this to stop the Beldams," she said. "I'm also doing it for … well ..." She looked round. Maria was trailing off to one side, briefly zoned out and thinking of something else. Birds flew overhead, and her eyess tracked automatically to them.

"Do you know what happened when the Beldam took my parents, Wybie?" said Coraline. "I was alone. I was more alone than I'd ever been. Miss Spink and Forcible weren't much company. I couldn't get you to believe me – no, shut up," she said as Wybie opened his mouth to speak. "You don't have to apologise. You didn't have any reason then to believe me. The point was, apart from the cat, I had no one I could go to for help. No one I could talk to who knew what was going on."

She looked again at Maria.

"Do you know what I would have given to have someone?" said Coraline. "Maria's in the same boat as I was then. And if the cats aren't going to be any help, then I'm sure as hell not leaving her alone."

"Even when the Czarina's as powerful as they say?"

"_Especially_ when the Czarina's as powerful as they say. Wybie, are you sure you don't want to go?"

He looked stung that the question had even been asked. "I'm _not_ a quitter."

"You know," said Maria suddenly, breaking out of her reverie, "It makes sense now. Why the Czarina's servants took us to that dingy lot rather than the Merch Mart. I mean, if the Merch Mart's entrance isn't her only one, then they were probably going to take us in through another passage in a disused house."

"I ... yeah, you must be right." Coraline frowned. "Didn't we hear them saying something while we were moving? One of them gave the address, and the other asked if it was empty..."

"'The family moved out'," said Wybie, quoting from memory.

"Jesus."

"So what are we going to do?" asked Maria. "Do we have a plan, or...?"

"Yes, we do," Coraline said before Wybie could speak. "It's a good plan."

"Okay. What do we do?"

"First," said Coraline, "We suit up."


	10. Venture

In another set of circumstances, "suiting up" could have entailed something entirely different.

For example, were the trio properly prepared for what awaited them, suiting up would have consisted of a drawn-out montage where body armour was equipped, matte-black carapaces covering dull kevlar. Weapons capable of massacring armies would have been assembled, ammo would have been stuffed into spare pouches, bandoleers would have swung heavily with grenades and throwing knives.

However, in the circumstances in which they found themselves, suiting up consisted of considering what they might need, pooling what money they had in their pockets, and finding that their total came to nineteen dollars and seventeen cents.

Kevlar would probably be a little beyond their means.

"We'll take what there might be in the shops," said Coraline, dividing the money into roughly equal portions. They stood at the head of a long avenue, along which dozens of different small stores crowded out both sides. "Remember, we've each got to get at least some kind of flashlight. We'll need something to see by. We'll each need something we can defend ourselves with. If you'll have anything left over, then get whatever seems sensible. Choose carefully, we're on a kind of limited budget here."

"Are you sure there's nothing else we'll need?" said Wybie.

"Nothing we can get, at least." Coraline sighed. "If I'd known this was coming, I'd have asked Miss Spink and Miss Forcible for another adder stone. Finding the souls could be tough without one."

"You said they'd be about the size and shape of a ping-pong ball." Wybie knew better than to question why exactly they needed an adder stone.

"Maybe a bit bigger. If we're lucky, they'll be a lot smaller, since there's three hundred of them. That reminds me. Maria, you get something we can hold them in. A bag or rucksack, it doesn't matter, so long as it can hold a lot." Coraline checked her watch on her wrist, forgetting that it was broken beyond repair. "We'll meet back here in … screw it, we'll just meet back here once we're finished shopping. All that clear?"

"Crystal."

"Then let's roll."

* * *

><p>One three-way shopping expedition later, the three of them re-met.<p>

"I got a torch with batteries. _And_ I got a Louisville Slugger," said Coraline, opening her plastic bag to reveal a cheap flashlight lying in the bottom, and pulled out thirty inches of solid ash, entwined with curving writing and symbols. She grasped the baseball bat with one hand by the cloth grip, and swung it to test for balance and weight.

"That's good," said Wybie admiringly, looking over the bat. He had his hands clasped behind his back. "What did you get, Maria?"

Maria pulled the large black hemp bag she'd gotten off her shoulder and rummaged through it. "A flashlight," she said shyly, proffering it for inspection. "And a box knife." She pulled out the little plastic-handled knife, the small blade of which glinted silver in the sunlight.

"You'll have to get real close to use that," said Coraline dubiously.

"It was all I could get after the bag and torch. If we're lucky, I won't have to use it."

"Oh, certainly. And if we're lucky, a professional wizard will come teleporting out of nowhere and solve all our problems." She sighed. "Never mind. If it was all you could get, it was all you could get. What did you get, Wybie?"

"Well," he started, smiling deviously while taking a step forward, keeping his hands behind his back. "I thought about what to get. And while I was getting my flashlight, I realised that, if this problem's as big as the cats say, then it'll need a pretty unique solution. So, I was thinking what that might be, when I saw_ this_ lying in the street," He flourished one hand. Coraline looked at what nestled inside the glove.

"A lighter?" she said, apprehensive.

"Not just a lighter, a nearly-full lighter. And that gave me the idea to go into another store, and I got _this_." His other hand came forward, holding an aerosol can.

Coraline said, without inflection, "What."

"It's simple, really. You see, the spray from an aerosol can is flammable. When you place a naked flame in front of..."

"Yes, yes, I _know_ what happens when you do that. The problem is that what it does is _stupid_."

"Why is it stupid? I'd say having a short-range flamethrower on our side would be quite a big help."

"Wybie, those things don't _work_ like they do in the movies. When you put a _flame_ next to an _aerosol spray_, what happens is that the fire comes out too close to the can, and then you get an _explosion_."

"Actually, they can work, if you use them carefully. It's all about how you position the two, what angles you hold them at, what distance you hold them apart. If you do all these correctly, then you can make it work."

"Sure it'll work. Right up until it _doesn't_, and then what happens is that you're left holding a point-blank _firebomb_."

"Jonesy? Take a breath. You're emphasising everything."

"I am _not_ emphasising _every_..." Coraline stopped, and took a breath. "That doesn't stop it being stupid."

"Each to their own," Wybie responded cheerfully.

Coraline looked at her baseball bat, and then at Maria's box knife, and then back at Wybie's aerosol and lighter. She drew up a hand and slowly kneaded her forehead.

"If the Czarina's the type who can die laughing, then maybe, just maybe, we'll have a chance," she said. "As it is, you two had better stay behind me."

"That's..." started Wybie.

"Oh no, on second thought. You're standing well in front of us with that thing, Why-were-you-born."

"Well, _I_ thought it was a good idea," Wybie muttered to himself.

"Where to now?" asked Maria. "The Merch Mart?"

"Yeah. Take us to where in the building you found the little door. We'll go through it, end up in the Czarina's Other World, and we'll just take it from there. If it's just the Czarina, we might be able to take her together. If she's got servants or the Beldam with her … then we'll think of something. And if we get a chance to get the souls and run, then we take it. Any questions?"

"Yeah. Has anyone calculated our odds of success for this?" said Wybie.

"I'll rephrase that. Any _productive_ questions?"

"Yes. Should we make our peace with God now or later?" asked Maria with a faint smile.

"I hate you both. Let's just get moving."

* * *

><p>In the north of Chicago, the world's largest commercial centre rises from a paved riverbank, overlooking a shimmering expanse of the Chicago River. It never closes, it is always lit. Floodlights mark it out during the night, making it stand out against darkness on all sides.<p>

The building, the Merchandise Mart, covers two full city blocks and rises three hundred and forty feet into the air. Its sides are studded with thousands of windows, its roof is chamfered and pavilioned with bronze, and throughout its innards run dozens of miles of plumbing, hundreds of miles of wiring, and thousands of tons of bricks and steel.

Avarice and ambition and the sinews of finance are as integral to its construction as bricks and concrete; trade fairs and show rooms and businesses run constantly within it. Retail shopping offers half the world for sale, and the quality stores offer the other half. The free market made the Merch Mart, and the free market keeps it for its own.

So influential and widely used is the building that it benefits from its own train station, built atop older rails and an older station. What once carried people and goods and coal and lumber now carries quality consumables, businessmen, and empty promises dressed up with gilt and silver.

It's a significant railway. Few know just _how_ significant.

Coraline and Wybie and Maria entered the Merch Mart through the front door. Their weapons and torches were hidden in Maria's bag, which was fastened shut with little clips along the top. They attracted a few stares; it was a school day after all. But for the most part, they went unnoticed amongst the noise and clamour. People thronged in the Merch Mart, scores of employees contending for hundreds of customers. The ceiling rose all the way to the uppermost floor, and the balconeys and walkways above likewise teemed with activity. The place in this one location flourished, and there were many more doors leading off to many other sections of the building.

"You take the lead. You know the way," Coraline said to Maria. They wove their way through the crowded entrance hall, and exited down one of the side corridors, which was lined with wooden doors. They walked abreast, with Coraline in the centre.

"We came in through a different entrance when I came with the class," said Maria, worried. "I could try and get some rough bearings, but..." They rounded another corner in the corridor and walked down an identical stretch of shining linoleum floor, brick walls, and overhead lights.

"You kids lost?"

The voice came from a tan-shirted security guard standing in the corridor, who watched them coming with seemingly-sleepy eyes. His round belly strained at his uniform, and his moustache looked as though it had been swiped from a walrus. He ambled forward, projecting an air of reasonable authority.

"I'll handle this," whispered Wybie quickly, and walked forward before Coraline could protest.

"Yes, sir, we're a little lost," he said brightly, fixing the guard with a wide, slightly unnerving smile. "You see, we're here for a school project. We're trying to find our way to the ..."

"Train station," supplied Maria quietly.

"Train station, yeah. It's for … public transport and that."

"It's about the history of each service, and what role they play in the city today. We've already been to O'Hara Airport, spoken to cab drivers, and been to the waterfront," interjected Coraline quickly, adding some little believable details. "We're here with my dad, he's just waiting in the shopping centre until we're finished."

"It's O'Hare, not O'Hara," whispered Maria.

"Whichever."

The guard hesitated. But the Hispanic girl came across as the shy, bookish sort, rather than a rabble rouser. The blue-haired kid seemed to know what they were talking about, and he supposed that bag they were carrying contained papers and such. Besides, the kid in the fireman's coat had a terrifying smile, which he didn't want levelled at him for much longer.

"You just take the next junction to your right, and keep on walking until you see signs pointing to the station. If anyone else stops you, just tell them Luther vetted you."

"Sure will, sir. Thank you," said Wybie, his smile widening slightly. It wasn't a sight which did Luther's heart condition any good.

"No problem. You know, if you wanted some extra credit from your teacher, you could talk a little more about the station's history," he said quickly. "The Mart ain't always been the building on the site. It was built in 1930, on the remains of a previous station that had been closed around 1911. They just took the line that had been there, and linked it up with the Mart's shiny new freight station." The guard walked past them, and Wybie and Maria made to move in the direction he had indicated.

"You say there was a previous station?" said Coraline carefully, remembering her conversation with the cats. The guard turned and studied her.

"Yeah, built by the Galena and Chicago Railroad Union near the river. Wells Street Station. You kids don't go wandering now."


	11. Station

It was the matter of a few minutes to get to the Merch Mart station, and the matter of only a moment for Maria to relocate the little door.

Looking at it, Coraline saw the similarities between it and the little door in her living room immediately. It was relatively small compared to other doors; tall enough to let a child walk under, but only rose to chest height for an adult. It was painted the same drab white colour as the wall around it, though it wasn't coated over with wallpaper in the way Coraline's door had been. It was set in a wall that led to the station master's office, but she guessed that if ever it was opened, it would just open onto bricks. It was unusual and innocuous both, a triviality for an adult, and a matter of curiosity for a child.

Which was, of course, the entire point.

It was the entrance to a Beldam's lair, Coraline knew, and knew it with a chilling intensity. If they went through here, they would confront her Beldam and the Czarina. There may be no turning back.

She realised that, if this was really built atop the original Wells Street Station, then this even be the original entrance. The one from where the Czarina had started snaring children one hundred and and fifty years ago.

"Is it locked?" said Wybie, stepping past her.

"It wasn't when I went through," said Maria.

Wybie tested the handle, and sure enough, it edged open. The corridor ahead was solid with darkness, and from it there came the faint sound of whispering wind.

"My door had a key. I wonder why this one doesn't?" said Coraline.

"Maybe she just prefers to keep all her doors open. Or maybe she can control all the doors from inside her Other World," said Maria.

"Maybe," said Coraline, and stepped into the corridor and switched on her flashlight. It illuminated the passage wherever she swept the beam, revealing a single stretch of corridor that extended perfectly horizontally for a distance Coraline couldn't discern.

She looked round at the others and waved them through.

"Come on," she said quietly. "And leave the door ajar."

They stepped through. As they did, Coraline saw Maria touch the crucifix around her neck and murmur something fervent under her breath. Wybie kept the door ajar, and didn't meet Coraline's eye.

The corridor ran on as they began their long walk. The walls and ceiling were the same nondescript white as the walls in the railway station without, and at the edges, Coraline saw that the paper was peeling and decaying. The floor they walked upon felt odd to Coraline's feet, and she looked down.

Beneath her feet ran parallel metal rails, between which ran dark wooden ties. The ties were crumbling and broken in places, and the rails were made of some dark metal that it took Coraline a moment to identify. They were bronze. She pointed this out to Wybie and Maria.

"Why are the rails bronze? Aren't they usually made from steel, or some sort of iron?"

"They usually are. That is strange," said Wybie, scratching his head.

"A lot of the metal in the Czarina's world was bronze," said Maria. "Or copper. Or tin. I don't actually think I saw any iron."

"We should make a note of that," said Coraline. "There's probably a reason."

They walked on in silence for another few moments, taking care to avoid catching and twisting their feet between the ties.

Wybie then said, "By the way, I'd just like to say that we're not asking _why_ there are rails or what we're doing going through a door and corridor that by the laws of physics shouldn't _exist_, but we are questioning why the rails are made of bronze rather than iron. I'd just like to point that out."

"Wybie..."

"Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out that it's a great example of something-or-other. Adaptability."

They walked on in silence. The shadows grew oppressive wherever they weren't dispelled by a flashlight.

Gradually, the corridor began to gently slope downwards. They found themselves walking at an incline down into the darkness, falling deeper and deeper beneath the city. The wallpaper had almost entirely rotted away, revealing walls made of red brick. The brick was made harsh and jagged by the irregular sweeps of the flashlights, and crumbled at the touch. The rails underfoot grew taller, more slippery, more awkward to walk upon.

"It was different when I first came down it," whispered Maria, the quiet words echoing ahead of her into the darkness. "The walls were like white marble, and the floor was plush and gold. It had its own soft light in the very walls. You could walk forever and not get tired. What's happened to it?"

"It's gotten tired of pretending," replied Coraline.

Wybie swept his flashlight beam from wall to wall, his eyes following it. The beam suddenly caught a scrap of paper. He reached up and plucked it off the wall. He scanned it, and Coraline and Maria glanced over.

It was a campaign leaflet, written in bold black type, with a Democrat logo in each corner. The front was taken up by a photo of a grey-haired man in a dark blue suit standing in front of a flag, below which was set '**Re-elect Daley for Mayor – Four More Years**'. Wybie turned it around.

"2007. Two years ago." He turned back it around and frowned at it, as if willing the man to give him an answer. "How the heck did this get here?"

"There's another piece of paper on the wall there," said Coraline, pointing with her flashlight at another paper affixed to the wall a few feet on.

This paper showed the same man, in a similar pose, with the same slogan, with slightly less grey in his hair.

"I'd make a joke about politicians popping up in the darkest, dingiest places," said Wybie, "Except I can't think of one."

"2003. What gives?" said Coraline, studying the leaflet and dropping it. She pointed the flashlight along the sloping tunnel and said "Wow."

"What?"

"There's more paper. A _lot_ more."

And there was. Papers dotted the walls and ceiling, leaflets flanked by postcards surrounded by tickets next to posters. They stretched on. And they went back in time.

Daley's election material ran through the decades, back all the way to 1989. Rough bands related to each year, newspaper clippings and such giving an indication of time. One year yielded to another, in a constant flow back into Chicago's history as the rails grew more treacherous and the shadows grew darker.

"This … what is this?" said Maria, staring as the leaflets changed their support from Daley to Harold Washington. The few paltry Republican leaflets hardly seemed to qualify for significance. "Why are all these papers here?"

"It must be how long the Czarina's been in Chicago," said Coraline. "She's been with this city since she took its station, she's been a part of its history since day one. Maybe this is just a kind of … reflection of that. Or maybe she put it here to freak us out."

"If that's the case, then it isn't working," said Wybie, his expression bored as he browsed the paper. His expression suddenly lit up and he said "Ooh!" as he saw one poster. "Hey, it's a Blues Brothers poster. And … I think it's mint! Now there's a windfall. Would there be room in the bag for ..."

"No," said Coraline firmly.

"Even if we rolled it..."

"No."

"What if..."

Coraline's look could have stopped a man's heart at fifty paces. Wybie relented, but cast a sorrowful look at the poster as he walked past.

The tunnel sloped constantly downwards, through earth and time. The period of the walls shifted through decades, one after the other. The seventies became, by subtle degrees, the sixties. The sixties fell away to the fifties. They walked on, and the front page of the Chicago Tribune roared about the victory of Dewey over Truman. A few steps on, it poured equal acclaim onto the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pillars of smoke and fire blotted out the sun on the front page. On they went, through propaganda through renewed offensives, and onto the Depression and mass starvation and unemployment. The hollow faces from the photos of this time haunted the three as they passed, sending out mute appeals for help that couldn't be given.

Onwards, to Prohibition, to covert slips of paper advertising down-at-heel speakeasies and pompous proclamations of sobriety. Al Capone smirked past a cigar, slumped bodies bled out on a warehouse floor, the American Temperance Society trumpeted virtue through an alcohol embargo. Blood and corruption and alcohol flowed in wide rivers around the papers.

And further back they went, along the endless tunnel. Custer died an idiot's death with all his men. The Ghost Dance movement spread through the west, and the Seventh Cavalry slaughtered over a hundred and fifty Native American men, women and children with machine guns by way of a measured response.

A lot of the history around them was of a similarly dark tone. The tunnel's tastes ran towards war and slaughter, towards the darkest points of Chicago's and America's history. Short as it was, there was a lot of material to cover.

"Think you could do essays on this stuff?" asked Wybie, as they neared the Civil War era of Chicago, shortly before wildfire swept through the city. The red brick of the walls was starting to really crumble, and where it fell away altogether, wet earth showed. It was dark and cloying, and still held the pieces of paper, which were currently bearing news of the pitched massacre at Antietam.

"Don't even joke. I probably could." Coraline looked at the faded newspaper prints. "Some of it stays with you. How much more of this is there to go? We must be getting pretty near the beginning, the railways weren't in use all that long before the Civil War."

"I'll take your word for it. But if she's been taking kids for _all_ this time, then..." Wybie shuddered. "God. She's old. And powerful."

"My one was old. She'd been around since Oregon was settled."

"Yes, well, I suppose all this is just giving me a better idea of what two centuries means." Wybie shook his head and kept walking. Around him, Kansas bled and John Brown fought his short, violent and honourable crusade.

Finally, after several minutes more of walking, a large, faded piece of paper proclaimed:

**The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad is pleased to announce the Grand Opening of a new Railway Station in the City of Chicago, at the corners of Wells Street and Kinzie Avenue, to aid the Free Flow of Commerce, and the mass transport of such Material Goods and Passengers as shall best service the city. To contact our company offices, please visit our premises on Franklin Street.**

"Okay, that has to be it," said Coraline. "There's got to be an exit somewhere in the immediate future."

"Don't look now, but I think there might be more paper in the immediate future," said Maria.

"Oh, _what_?"

It was true. Papers were still attached to the dark earth walls, although they were a lot sparser. They were faded and ragged, so much so as for the letters to be all but indiscernible.

"How do _they_ exist?"

"Maybe she hasn't been feeding and setting up shop beneath Chicago all her life," suggested Maria. "Maybe she sort of … observed for some time before that. Kept an eye on things. Bided her time."

The tunnel was beginning to flatten as they walked, and at its end, they could make out a pin-prick of light. It had to be the Czarina's lair, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel (or, more appropriately, an oncoming train).

The papers along the walls now were tawdry things, but of no less historical value and meaning. They went back to the first incorporation of the Town of Chicago, the destruction and construction of Fort Dearborn, and, last of all, a scribbled journal entry in French.

The walls after that, for this final stretch far below the city, held flowing Algonquian script and Potawatomi symbols, carved into the very earth. The further back they went, the cruder they became, the evolution of a language through centuries and short millennia. They thinned, became mere scratchings.

And within spitting distance of the exit, they faded away. Black earth marked their passage.

Coraline shifted her feet on the rails and looked at the door in front of them. It was comparatively large, more than six feet tall, and set within an rough arch of mottled stone. It was made of some dark, polished wood, which glistened in the glare of the flashlights. The handle and hinges were blue with copper rust. The rails ran beneath it.

"Okay, whatever happens after this, we stick together," she said. "I'll take the lead with the bat. Maria, if you see anything that looks vaguely soul-like, then take it and put in the bag. And Doofenschmirtz here with the flamethrower will keep a lookout, okay?"

"Aye, aye, cap'n."

Coraline took a grip on the baseball bat, ready to swing it at anything that could spring at them. Then she reached out for the handle, and pushed the door open.

It opened surprisingly easily, and opened outwards. For a moment, they stood and stared at the sight through the door.

Then Wybie said "Avast. This is screwed up."

* * *

><p>There hung in white nothingness a great red building.<p>

It was the same nothingness that Coraline had encountered in Ashland, the same white space that extended endlessly in all directions, noiseless, tasteless, textureless. It was the same material in which the Beldam had created her supernatural shadow of the Pink Palace.

However, what hung in the air before them had no root in anything Coraline had experienced, or what any of the three had experienced, or in any form of rational thought for that matter.

The rails beneath their feet ran out through the white void to a massive conglomeration of sheer red brick walls, spiked clock towers, and dark windows. The building, a grotesque parody of what must have been the original Wells Street Station, straddled their field of view from side to side. It was a monstrous size, a titanic vague rectangle from which sharp towers and smoke-spewing chimneys protruded and windows looked out like huge, haunted eyes. It was mirrored on its bottom as on its top, and gables and bronze bars chased along irregular angles, like an Escher drawing that had gone off its medication. The brick from which it was made was a deep, dark carmine, the colour of rust and blood. Dark shadows lurked in every crevice, and pale cement crept in trails between the bricks.

The door from which their rails led was just one of hundreds in the space all around the station. They hung suspended, doors in the middle of nothing, from which rails fell to the station below. They curved and looped in the air, merging paths, becoming thicker as they neared the building. They all met at the front of it, in a final section of rail more than ten feet across, that glided underneath massive front doors. It was the centre of a vast metal web that cut across worlds.

It hung in mid-air, still but for the smoke drifting from its chimneys, silent but for a faint chiming that could have come from the clock towers.

"We must have taken a wrong turn. We seem to have walked into one of Tim Burton's nightmares," said Wybie, in an attempt at levity.

"It was like a Disney castle the last time," said Maria. "I don't think we're in Disneyland anymore."

As if to underscore her point, there came a distant shrill wail from the station, the strident scream of a steam-whistle. It sounded tortured and ancient. Another one followed on its heels a few seconds later.

"Wybie? I'm sorry, but old-fashioned chivalry dictates that you take the lead. Don't worry, we'll be right behind you," said Coraline, joking to hide her apprehension.

"Hey, we got rid of old-fashioned chivalry for a reason. Besides, if I was being chivalrous, wouldn't that mean I let ladies go first?"

"Oh no, after you..."

They bickered and joked all the way to the station's front door, matching each other's pace, keeping an even eye on the station and each other.

The huge front door seemed to have no handle or smaller aperture, they noticed as they drew nearer.

"Are we meant to knock?" said Wybie.

"I don't think we should actually _announce_ our presence to the Czarina. She might not know we're coming yet," said Maria.

"So how do we get in?"

"Maybe there's another way in further up," said Coraline.

"You get right on that. My Spiderman impression's nothing to envy."

"Are we_ sure_ there isn't a -"

The door swung ponderously open inwards.

"Oh," said Wybie.

"I suppose that settles the question of whether or not she knows we're here," said Maria.

Coraline stepped through, her bat at the ready in one hand and her flashlight angled in the other. The flashlight proved unnecessary; there was a subtle ambient light that was dingy and polluted, but provided just enough to see by.

The entry hall of the station was vast and sprawling, a colossal brick chamber that carried the echoes of their steps to the furthest ends of the room. The flagstone floor was covered in a fine layer of dirt and grime, and the bricks in the walls were in the same sorry condition as the ones in the tunnel from the Merch Mart. Far above, the ceiling rose to a point completely obscured by a cloud of soot particles and dust. Chains dangled down from it and swung gently, their faint rattling adding to the eerie feel of the chamber.

The walls were lined with countless haphazard crates and barrels and boxes of various goods, bound behind wood and metal. Coal spilled onto the floor from one split barrel, copper nails from a rotted crate, and something that might have once been fruit from a split sack. They were stacked in pyramids and chaotic piles. The only thing that split the lined goods were the two doors set in the middle of the left and right sides of the chamber.

In the centre of the room, a great brick pillar rose, easily six feet across on each side. There rose before it a small pyramid of wooden, brass-bound barrels, marked with labels denoting '**Seneca Oil Company Brand Petroleum – Genuine Titusville Product'**.

The three cautiously ventured forward into the room. There was not a response, not a single sound but their own footsteps and beating hearts.

"That's-" began Maria, and then stifled a scream as the entry door behind them suddenly slammed shut. Bolts set into it slammed and locked together. The light that had streamed in from the outside was cut off, and all three instantly switched their flashlights back on.

And then there was another sound from the other side of the chamber, from behind the brick pillar, the sound of a metallic scratching and shuffling.

A figure rose into view from behind the pillar, and three flashlight beams locked onto it immediately. It stood still in the glare of light.

It was the Beldam.

She was diminished from Coraline's memories of her, more feeble, more given to twitching, and haggard and gaunt with hunger. Her right hand was still missing, and the arm ended at the glistening tin-and-silver stump of a wrist. Her black button eyes were newly sewn in and still loose, her face still bore the scratches of the cat's attack. Her four metal legs left trailing spirals in the dirt as she walked.

She looked at the three with a terrible and pathetic malice, born of hunger and resentment. But as Coraline looked at her, she thought there was something else behind her gaze. A touch of …

...Fear?

Of Coraline, or of something else?

She stood still in the gaze of the flashlights, her dress ragged where it covered her abdomen. She licked her thin lips, and glanced quickly behind her.

"She said you'd come," she hissed quietly, in so low a tone that Coraline was hard-pressed to hear her. "Down here, where dust gathers and people forget and children die. I didn't believe her."

She took a trembling step forward, and the three took an equal step back, Coraline's gaze the most intense of them all. Wybie judged unhappily that she was out range of his flamethrower. The Beldam whispered "I didn't want to believe her."

"What didn't you want to believe?" asked Coraline, appalled by the naked fear in the Beldam's voice. This creature had been the architect of her nightmares for every night for the past few weeks. If something could scare _her_...

"Run!" hissed the Beldam frantically. "Run while you still can!"

"I don't..."

Then there was the soft sound of shifting air, and a gentle contralto said "Guests, sister?", and Coraline saw the face of the monster that preyed upon Chicago.

The Czarina stepped out of seemingly nowhere, her legs slipping out of a fold in space, the currents of her voice making the dust particles in the air dance. The tips of four metal legs tapped against the floor, coming to points like needles. They gleamed in the darkness, brass and shining copper against the gloom.

"It has been so, so long since young feet walked in my station," the Czarina crooned, her voice as tranquil as a mother's bedtime lullaby, "So long by my reckoning since youth and precious _life_ danced through my halls."

The abdomen from which her legs extended was a gleaming, multifaceted thing, the same brown and orange colours as were evident on her metal limbs, but faded, made organic and rolling drunkenly as she walked.

"And the last child who left my home left so cruelly, so quickly, like a thief in the night who spurned my care and love." Her voice sharpened even as it maintained the disturbingly serene sing-song manner.

A short thorax jutted from the front of her abdomen, and became her upright torso as it rose. Her body was covered by a ragged red shift that could have once been a scarlet evening gown. The rags and tatters that were left revealed her shrunken, emaciated frame. Her skin was as pale and textured as wax, and gleamed as white as bone. From the top of her torso, two metal arms hung nearly all the way to the ground, the hands huge and delicate, with fingers that came to wickedly sharp points. The same waxy substance that was her skin ran partway down these arms, but melted away like running wax down a candle, exposing metal all the way down from her elbow. The arms hung still against her sides.

Halfway between those arms and her thorax, another set of arms came out. They were thicker and shorter, and folded before her and rubbed together before her chest. These arm's hands, which were more like claws than hands, simpered and rubbed and twitched against each other in unsettling motions that looked almost uncontrolled.

Limp, long, stringy red hair fell from her scalp and shrouded her head on all sides. What could be seen of her face would, Coraline knew, give her nightmares. The skin of her face was as desiccated and pulled tight as an Incan mummy, the lips pulled away from the teeth in a horrendous rictus-grin, revealing teeth as long and sharp as blackened knives. White buttons glinted beneath her hair, red trimmed, red threaded, full of evil intent.

"But she has returned, and I forgive her," breathed the Czarina, stopping beside the Beldam. "And she has brought _friends_."

Beside the Beldam, it was obvious who power lay with here under the city, and not just from their demeanour and behaviour. The Beldam was about as tall as Coraline's father, who had topped out at six feet, give or take an inch.

The Czarina was easily fifteen feet tall at the shoulders.

The three didn't trust themselves to speak. The Czarina brushed past the Beldam and stalked closer to them.

"Come to me, my darlings," she crooned, her teeth flashing. "Come to me, and I shall give you whatever you desire. I shall make a home for you, a bed for you, a place of refuge for you from that awful and uncaring world."

Coraline found her voice.

"We want nothing from you," she said, her voice trembling, holding the baseball bat before her with one hand, pointed at the Czarina's face. "We're here for the souls of the children you've taken. All of them. I'll challenge you to a game for them."

The Czarina tilted her head, as if Coraline had started speaking in Martian.

"The souls?" she said. "But whyever would you want to take them back up to that horrendous world, where they were lost and ignored, because nobody loved them or cared? Here, I can give them the refuge they've always wanted -" Her smile widened and sharpened. "- And they can provide just a little repayment in kind."

"You're feeding off them," Coraline snarled, righteous anger temporarily overcoming her fear. "We're taking them, whether you let us or not."

The Czarina threw back her head and laughed. The sound pealed in the room, and echoed off rafters and the far-distant roof.

"Don't accept," hissed the Beldam from behind the Czarina. "She's a cunning, wicked child, she won't play fair..."

"You were not given leave to speak," said the Czarina mildly. What threat there was in her tone was enough to immediately silence the Beldam. The Czarina turned back to the three.

"Oh, I have wondered when you would come to my home. I waited so long, so long – but rightly. I can _taste_ your desire, children. It flows off you like bright fountains. But I should not have had to wait longer for this. I was _most_ displeased with my servants when they let you escape." One of her great hands stirred and twitched over the ground. "I had to _chastise_ them."

Above where her hand had twitched, there now lay on the flagstones what looked like a thin pile of black rags. The hand passed over them again and twitched and flexed, as though operating a marionette. The hand rose – and the rags rose in mid-air and took form with it.

It was Mr Bodkin whose body rose up within the remains of his suit. Rents and torture-marks ran all over his exposed skin, and ran down through his tattered clothing. Tarry sawdust oozed out from his open scars. His hair was mussed, he hung limply in the Czarina's grasp, and though his mouth had been sewn into a threatening snarl, anguish showed past his button eyes. Around his neck, what seemed to be a golden mane had been sewn into his skin.

"Mr Bodkin here was an exceedingly careless boy, and he failed in his only function – retrieving my runaways," said the Czarina. "His associate opted to come to me and receive the lion's share of the punishment – but, of course, Mr Bodkin still had to be taught a sharp lesson." One metal finger reached down and gently stroked the top of Mr Bodkin's head. "Although his associate did still receive the lion's share of the punishment."

Mr Bodkin slowly reached up and brushed his hand against the mane of golden hair around his neck.

"Yes, I think we shall have a game," said the Czarina sharply, looking abruptly up from the ravaged Mr Bodkin. "The most ancient kind. A death-game." She jabbed a finger on one of her smaller hands at the Beldam. "You want Coraline, dearest sister? Then there she is. Go and _get_ her."

The Beldam twitched and ventured closer to Coraline, slowly at first, but gathered speed. Coraline grasped the bat with both hands and stood her ground, her eyes wide.

The Beldam drove down at the trio, and Coraline dodged way from her to the left while Wybie and Maria sprang to the right. The Beldam ducked the careless swing from the baseball bat and advanced on Coraline, her face stark with feral hunger. Coraline backed away, glancing behind her for the door on her side of the room.

"And you, slave." The Czarina jerked her large hand and Mr Bodkin jerked like a puppet. "You want the hurting to stop? You want your precious associate back?" She pointed him at Wybie and Maria in turn. "_Them_. Get them, worm-meal. Take them to me and don't fail this time. Or I'll keep you alive like this _forever_."

She freed him from her hand and he lurched forward, catching himself before he could fall. He shook and steadied himself, and looked drunkenly around for Wybie and Maria. Catching sight of them, he snarled in the back of his throat and charged. They ran back, and he kept on running straight at them, his stance low and primal, his arms flailing and scratching at the ground.

"This way!" yelled Maria, tugging hard on Wybie's arm. "I know where we can outrun him! Come on, quickly!"

He ran after her, while Mr Bodkin sluggishly changed direction and kept coming after them, as relentless as a locomotive. As she brought them to the door on the right, Wybie turned to Coraline, who was backing away from the Beldam into the rightwards door.

"Be careful! We'll meet up with you!" he yelled.

She nodded, her eyes as wide and terrified as Wybie's own. Then she turned and ran through the door, and the Beldam pursued her. At the same time, Maria pulled Wybie through their own door. Mr Bodkin came after them, the stitches around his mouth splitting and a low and terrible scream bubbling up from the depths of his throat.

The Czarina laughed again, her harsh cackles of laughter splitting and trembling through the air. Around her, Wells Street Station came alive with clamour and shouting and running feet.

Foe the first time in countless years, the station reawoke.

* * *

><p>"What the hell?" enquired an office manager some ten stories above the ground floor of the Merch Mart, looking at his department's photocopier.<p>

The machine seemed to be twitching on its desk, emitting confused puffs of smoke. And when he looked around him, the air seemed to be buzzing with some sort of charge.

And the damn building seemed to be _trembling_, right down to its foundation.


	12. Hellfire

Captain DeShawn Franklin of the Chicago Police Department was not having a good day.

It had begun hopefully enough. The sun was out, a cool yet soft breeze was in the air, and there wasn't a single report of a stabbing or shooting waiting on his desk when he got in.

Then the head of the local branch of PETA had sent yet another irate phone call to his precinct's station, demanding to know when the police were going to investigate the cats that had been found dead a few years back. That was aggravating, but routine, and easily handled.

It continued with more on the news about the kids that had gone missing in Oregon. The entire West Coast had been eaten up by the story, and the firestorm of publicity meant that manhunts were going on all over the place. Franklin wished them success, and spared a thought for the unresolved cases of disappeared children that haunted the city. One of the strangest things about the Oregon kidnapping was that one of the children concerned matched the description of a child who had recently gone missing in Chicago.

And then, a wide-eyed, haggard young man had burst into the police station, yelling that he'd just come from a kidnapping attempt. Once he'd been calmed down, the man, who was of university age, had given a brief description of the kidnappers and the kidnapped. His descriptions matched up perfectly with the children who had gone missing in Oregon.

_That_ had made the day a lot more interesting, and a manhunt had swept across the city, with police forces mobilised everywhere to find the kidnappers. Calls were made to the forces in Oregon and to the kid's parents and guardians, and the young man voluntarily placed himself in police custody and confirmed that his own van had been used as the vehicle in the crime. Sure enough, eyewitness accounts collected a few hours later confirmed that a van of his description had been in Ashland.

And in the middle of all this, a panicky call had come from one of the officers on patrol.

"Captain Franklin, sir? It's … it's the Merch Mart."

"What about it?"

"It's … you'd better come down, sir."

That had been five minutes ago.

Now it was five minutes later, and the Merch Mart was surrounded by a police cordon. It had been entirely evacuated, and the thin barrier of police officers barely kept a curious and bewildered throng of hundreds at bay.

The Mart was shaking, as if caught in the throes of a minor earthquake. From its top to its bottom, streamers of green-gossamer lightning sparked and banked, trails curling off and banking in windows. The huge structure rumbled and pulsed with chaotic energy, the lightning winding around it and snapping in the heavy wind that had sprung up. From deep within, a faint and irregular chiming pealed out onto the street.

Franklin looked up at it from a short distance away on the street. Next to him stood the liaison between the police department and the mayor's office, Josiah Willows, a sinewy grey-haired man who was an old friend of Franklin. All around them, officers barked out orders, people surged and called out questions, blocked lanes of traffic sounded their horns in a constant rolling din, and the chiming of the Merch Mart added the final piece of musical backing to the whole mess.

"I'd ask what exactly was happening," said Franklin, dragging on a much-needed cigarette, "Except that I'd have to include some sort of profanity in the question, and I don't know any _bad enough_."

"Isn't there something you can do?" asked Willows.

"Well, damn. I must have been off ill when we covered this scenario in the academy." Franklin theatrically scratched his head. "Do you have any ideas? Shall we take the Mart in for causing a public disturbance? Do you want to read it its Miranda rights, or shall I?"

"Screw you, Shawn."

"That's your wife's job." He dropped the cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it under his heel. To his left, a nice man with a sandwich board proclaiming the apocalypse was cheerfully adopting the Mart's current condition into his proselytising. Cars tooted. People yelled. The Mart chimed. Lightning crackled.

"Nobody's been hurt. We're keeping everyone at a distance. We're keeping an eye on things. I think that's _all_ we can do." Franklin looked up. Streams of teal light flared where emerald lightning met blue sky.

"What shall I tell the mayor?"

"Tell him we're assessing the situation. At length."

Neither of them, preoccupied as they were, saw the small dark shape that flashed between their legs, and which ran at a full tilt under the police barrier and to one of the Mart's open doors.

Toot, yell, chime, crackle, etcetera.

* * *

><p>The halls of Wells Street Station pulsed with a constant, arrhythmic beat, that flowed out through the walls like a heartbeat. It matched the volume of Coraline's own as she ran down a stone corridor, keeping ahead of the ravening Beldam.<p>

The Beldam's button eyes were fixed upon Coraline's fleeing back. Her open mouth slavered, her face was drawn and taut, her only vocalisation was a hoarse and inarticulate hiss. Her sharp needle-limbs hit the stone floor with a constant _click-click-click_.

The Czarina would have planned for this, a part of Coraline noted as she fought to outrun the Beldam. She would have wanted us to fight each other. She would have kept her own sister as hungry as possible, tormented her with the few scraps of food or soul or whatever she gave, and made sure she was ready to rip me to shreds if necessary.

She saw a corner peeling off to the right up ahead, and she ran faster. The Beldam hissed and sped up.

"_You can't escape!_" she screamed with fury that ripped out of her throat. "You have no friends with you now! You have no stone, no cat, no chance to cheat! No one is coming to save you, Coraline! You're going to -"

Whatever the Beldam had been saying was cut off abruptly as Coraline suddenly swerved at the last moment to run around the corner, and the Beldam, unable to correct her own momentum in time, plunged face-first into the wall with a heavy thump and a cut off screech.

Coraline drove down at her with the baseball bat while she lay stunned, bringing it down in a double-handed overhead swipe. A metal claw sprang out with supernatural reflexes from the tangle of silver limbs that was the Beldam, however, and seized the bat with a grip like a vice. It tightened, and then lunged forward, sending Coraline tumbling backwards and the bat flying further along the corridor.

Coraline rose quickly to her feet and backed away, looking behind her for the bat. She saw that the corridor became a wide flight of stone stairs running downwards. The bat was rolling down them.

She turned and ran for it at a dead sprint, only slowing down marginally when she started descending the stairs. Behind her, the Beldam rose to her feet. Her limbs shot out and dug into the wall, and with a heave, using her remaining hand for support, she started scuttling along the wall.

They ran, both of them, each with a single-minded focus, Coraline on the bat, the Beldam on Coraline, both of them nearing and nearing...

The Beldam's metal legs unfolded with the force of steam pistons, and she sprang from the wall right at Coraline. Coraline's own reflexes saved her just in time, she ducked and the Beldam flew just over her head and caught herself on the other wall.

Coraline grabbed for the bat with her left hand and swiftly brought it around in a clumsy blow that met the Beldam's head just as the creature turned, hissing, to Coraline. It connected with a solid thunk, the force of impact throwing the Beldam back just as it unbalanced Coraline. She almost fell, fighting to keep her balance, and flew down the remaining steps at a half run – half tumble.

She ran down and righted herself on the lower stretch of floor, and looked to see where it led. Before her, twenty feet away, a door was at the end of the corridor. A sign on it said **Engine Room**.

A familiar _click-click-click _noise made Coraline turn back to the stairs. The Beldam descended on her four legs, her face marked by the bat, her eyes gleaming with hunger and hatred.

Coraline ran for the door, the Beldam's words following her.

"_No one is coming to save you, Coraline._"

* * *

><p>"Keep up with me!" Maria called to Wybie as the two ran through endless thin corridors, the sounds of Mr Bodkin's relentless pursuit in their ears.<p>

"Where-are-we-going?" he panted, struggling to keep track of where they were. You'd need a peculiar mind to keep track of this sort of maze, he thought.

"Somewhere he can't follow us! It's this way." She pulled him on, and they dove through a little metal aperture, like a tiny door left open.

They scrambled into the room beyond the little door, and while Wybie tried to get his bearings, Maria turned back to the little doorway and grabbed for its metal door, which lay wide open on its hinges. She slammed it shut, and drew bolts across it closed as quickly as she could.

Wybie watched her close it, and turned to look at the room they were in.

"Woah," he said.

Unlike the entry hall, in this room it was possible to see the roof through all the grime in the air. The roof was high and arched, almost like a cathedral in its scale, and made from the same red brick as most of the building. It was long as well, the other end looked at least two hundred feet away.

And between them and the other end of the room, long rows of seats ran all the way.

They were made from dark metal and wood. At a rough guess, there were at least three hundred of the joined-together seats. Each of the three rows of seats was about fifty seats long, and each seat was connected to another at the back. It was like an old-fashioned waiting room in a station.

Three hundred. That jogged a memory in Wybie's head, one uncomfortably near at hand.

Then it came to him, as he looked down into one of the seats, and saw a pile of grey dust, embedded with tattered scraps and rags of old clothing. And in the middle of the pile, a tiny smoky marble glinted.

A child's soul.

"Maria?" he said, with trepidation. "I … I think this is it. This is where they're kept."

"What?" she said, hurrying over. She looked down into the chair, saw the pile of dust and clothes and the little shining marble, and looked up at all the rest of the chairs. "Oh. Oh, God."

"Come on," said Wybie. "I'll get the ones on the left, you get the ones on the right. We'll meet in the middle."

They rushed to the furthest sides of the room, to the beginnings of the rows of seats. Maria had her bag ready and hanging open, and Wybie thanked his stars for all the pockets in his coats. He reached out and began to seize the little souls from each seat, stuffing them into a different pocket each time. He never stopped moving, he snatched them on the run.

Every time he did, the soul stirred and glowed in his gloved hand, and each time a tiny voice whispered in his ear.

_+are you here to take us out to take us away from her+_

_+hollow it hurts it hurts she wouldn't stop hurting+_

_+please I want my mommy why can't I leave+_

Each one left a little scar on Wybie's soul as he heard it, as he yearned to reach out to each tiny voice and reassure it, _You're not alone. You're free. You're going wherever souls go._

And what his eyes witnessed as he sped past each metal chair didn't help. Disturbingly personal touches surfaced from time to time among the rags of clothes amidst the dust. The remains of a little flower bonnet here. A real, tiny, wooden button. A scrap of carefully embroidered lace.

Once, he saw something lying at the foot of one chair. He stopped to look at it, and saw it was a dusty teddy bear.

Next to it, there lay a pair of shoes hardly big enough for a three-year old.

He fought the urge to dry-heave, grabbed the little soul, _+want teddy it's cold+_, and ran on through the endless memories, through the endless horrors.

He rounded the end of the row, and hurtled down the other side. Maria did the same thing at her side of the room. In a matter of moments, they had finished these rows as well, and both of them raced to the final double-sided row of chairs running along the centre.

They met up again at the far end, by which time Wybie was rattling as he walked. He dived into his pockets and brought out handfuls of souls which he dropped into the open bag. Maria shivered as she stood still, her own mind on the voices of the souls as well.

"We've got them all," said Wybie, as he drew out the last soul from an inside pocket (_+run+_) and dropped it into the bag. "So if you make a break for it, and I go and help Coraline out, then we might ..."

There was a sudden hollow banging from the far door, and Wybie and Maria jumped and looked at it in alarm. The metal door pulsed with the blows, then bent out with a shrieking of metal, and was then ripped clean off its hinges with one final strike. A suited arm waved out from the opening, and helped pull the rest of its body through. Mr Bodkin crawled out from the door, and staggered upright. One of his eyes had been ripped off when he had pulled himself through the tight space.

"Crap," breathed Wybie. "You take the bag and circle around. Run for the door once I've got his attention." He began to walk slowly forwards, his hands falling to his sides.

"What are you_ doing_?" Maria hissed. She clenched the bag tight to her.

"I told you. Getting his attention." Wybie kept up his slow, steady pace between the rows of seats. His eyes were fixed on the shuffling Mr Bodkin, and he waved his arm slowly to get his attention.

"Hey," said Wybie in a loud, clear tone. "Ugly."

Mr Bodkin's eye locked straight on him. The snarled grimace sewn onto his mouth didn't look so feigned.

"Heh, I said 'Hey, ugly' and you looked," said Wybie, his words and manner concealing his jack-hammer heart rate. "You want me? Come and get me." Out of the side of his mouth, "Go. Quickly."

Maria looked at him fearfully, then slowly began to circle around the row of seats, towards the far exit. Mr Bodkin's eye flicked briefly to her-

-Which was the split-second Wybie needed. His hands blurred and held the aerosol can before him, and the lighter tip a few inches from the end of the nozzle. He jammed hard on the button on the top of the aerosol in the same instant that he flicked the lighter to life.

It caught first time. A spray of aerosol flew out and a tiny flame sprung up from the lighter. The two met, and air ignited, and the hiss of the aerosol became the roar of a tongue of flame that spat into the air between Wybie and Mr Bodkin.

Holy crap. He hadn't been sure if that would actually _work_.

The sight of the fire seemed to trigger something in Mr Bodkin, and he lurched forward into a charge directly at Wybie, the stitches on his mouth splitting open in a spray of tarry sawdust, releasing a bestial roar. Maria saw this and, after she looked as though she may run in to help Wybie, she reluctantly followed the plan and made straight for the door.

Wybie kept the fire trained on Mr Bodkin, the heat of which he could already feel beating on his face. If the puppet-man was stupid enough to run right into it, then this could be ridiculously easy.

But even as wounded and maddened by torture as Mr Bodkin was, he was nobody's fool, and as the flame drove right at him he leapt to his left, landing on a chair amidst a row and buckling it with the impact. He then jumped and twisted in the air, leaping for Wybie's throat.

Wybie panicked with the sudden turn of events, and his finger lost purchase on the aerosol button, extinguishing the flame and leaving only a solid wall of heat and a hazy after-effect in the air. He turned frantically to track Mr Bodkin, all but jumping backwards in his haste to avoid the man. Mr Bodkin slammed into the ground scant inches from Wybie and was instantly up and fighting to get to him, his arms thrashing at the air. Wybie saw that the man's hands were bent into claws, that his nails had lengthened and sharpened and become as black as lacquered wood.

He barely avoided the first blur of blows from Mr Bodkin, and reacted too slowly to avoid the second. The full length of Mr Bodkin's arm slammed into his chest with the force of a freight truck, and picked Wybie up and sent him sprawling through the air. He landed with a rush of breath and explosive pain stitching its way across his chest. Through blurry vision, he saw Mr Bodkin striding closer to him.

Tilting his head to one side, he saw that he was lying next to the central row of seats. Each chair had a gap beneath it, and the legs were widely spaced. He started scrabbling backwards beneath the seats, checking desperately that he still had the can and lighter. If he didn't, then his end would be as quick as it would be horrific.

But by some unconscious act of his mind, his hands had closed tight around them, and he was still in the fight.

Much as he wished he wasn't.

Mr Bodkin kept striding towards Wybie as he saw him disappear under the chairs. Such a barrier might have slowed down another man by making him climb over it. Mr Bodkin lashed out with his hands, and ripped away chunks of metal and wood in a storm of sudden violence. Shrapnel and splinters flew everywhere, and Mr Bodkin stepped right through the gap.

Right into the path of Wybie's aerosol.

Wybie, lying helpless and praying to whatever god felt like fielding it, hammered on the button and ignited the lighter. The lighter, as cheap as it looked, held reliable, and once more sparked to life. It caught the gas spray of the aerosol, turned it to rushing light and heat and sound and fury, and drove it full into Mr Bodkin's torso.

It cascaded down him and spiralled around him, catching cloth in a storm of orange, wrapping around Mr Bodkin and engulfing him entirely. The man flailed and clawed at the fire, while Wybie watched, horrified by what he had done.

Mr Bodkin spun and clawed and roared out futile defiance, but the fire was having none of it. It caught at an open wound, courtesy of the Czarina's chastisement, and licked at the tarry sawdust that was his innards. After that, it was all over, as Mr Bodkin went up like a candle. He fell to his knees, flames ripping him apart from the inside out.

His last ever act was to pull up one hand, and gently touch the burning blonde hair that hung around his neck. His expression looked almost peaceful.

Then he fell apart into a pile of burning ashes, and Wybie leaned back and gasped out a drained cough.

The air was like a sauna. Wybie had never felt so horribly homesick in all his life.

* * *

><p>Maria ran. Her feet hit the ground in a percussive beat, and her breath came out in ragged gasps as she retraced her steps, once more seeking a way out of Wells Street Station. The bag hung around her, surprisingly light for how full it was.<p>

She turned a corner, dashed down a flight of stairs, her memory throwing up directions as fast as she thought.

Left, then right, then down, then left, then past the clock to the next one on the right, then down the stretch of corridor, then left one last time and into the entry hall.

She threw the door open and didn't stop to look, to see if the Czarina was there, aware that any delay would mean that the children's souls would never get free and she'd be taken by the Czarina.

In any case, she didn't need to look. She heard the clacking of metal feet against the flagstone floor as soon as she entered, and as she sped towards the exit, heard "Leaving again, dearest Maria? But we cannot have that. We cannot have that _at all_."

She sped towards the doorway and positively threw herself onto the great bronze handle to slam it open, and caught herself and ran out onto the rails as she heard the Czarina coming after her.

She knew she would be followed, that the Czarina had every chance of outrunning her, that she would almost certainly never win alone against that monster.

She ran anyway. She ran out across the rails, a lone figure amidst emptiness. A sharp _click-click-click _sounded from behind her.

She neared the entry from the Merch Mart, and all but hurled herself inside. She once more broke into a flat-out run, hope rising within her like a star. But suddenly, her foot slipped between ties at the wrong angle, and when she pulled it forward, it erupted with a stabbing, wrenching pain, and she pitched forward onto the track.

"No, no, no!" she sobbed, her voice trembling as she fought to pull herself bodily forward, while _click-click-click _came closer and closer.

From the darkness up ahead of her, a shadow moved. It moved down, coming at a four-legged sprint, resolving itself into the shape of a cat with white markings on the chest and paws.

It was Shane from the Grimalkin Council, and the blaze in his olive eyes turned to concern and confusion when he saw Maria.

"Wha-" he began.

"Here!" she gasped, thrusting the bag at the startled cat. "You want to help? You want to hurt her? Then get them out – get them _all_ out! Everyone she's taken, everyone she feeds on."

"But-" started Shane.

"I'll look after myself! Just get them out!"

Shane looked at her, at the tunnel mouth behind her – then he reached down and grasped the bag's handle, and turned with it and started running. It wasn't a heavy bag, and he was a strong cat, and each little soul inside was as light as a feather. He broke into a sprint, and vanished up the tunnel.

Maria lay still and alone. She heard the _click-click-click _behind her slowing, knew that she was trapped, knew that the Czarina was looming over her. In this place of pure shadow, hers was greater than any of them.

"I'm not scared of you," whispered Maria.

"How _very_ foolish," came the throaty purr from behind Maria, and a metal skeleton of a hand reached out through the darkness to seize her.


	13. Shattered

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the building before I lose what composure I have left and do something drastic. Thank you, sir. Keep back, everyone. I said keep back!" Franklin was trying to calm himself himself down with thoughts of an as-yet distant retirement, but the public wasn't helping in the slightest.

"Shawn?" Willows had come walking back from a secluded spot where he'd been taking a phone call.

"Everyone? Do you see this police tape? It has 'No entry' written on it. It does _not_ have 'Step right on over and make yourself at home', as many of you seem to think. I told you to step back!" Franklin turned to Willows. "What is it?"

"I've just had his Majesty the mayor phoning up," said Willows. "He sends his fondest regards, hopes your wife and children are well, and would like to know what precisely the blue hell is happening at the Mart, why it's blocked off the north-east of Chicago, and what the police are doing about it."

"Did you mention we were assessing the situation?"

"He left the clear impression that he wants something more than assessment done. He's a politician. None of them want something like 'Remember that time when the Mart went off its meds and the mayor ran around like a headless chicken?' attached to their records."

"But we're all running around like headless chickens."

"Right. Except that politicians would sooner sell their first-born than confess that about themselves."

"So he wants something done."

"The precise words he used were 'Or heads will roll'."

Franklin looked up at the Mart again. The lightning hadn't actually hurt anyone, even after he had seen it make contact with several people. It was a big, sturdy building, and nothing had thus far collapsed.

From one of the open doors, he suddenly saw a tuxedo cat leap out, the handle of a large black bag clenched tight in its mouth. It sped across the pavement, under the police tape, and blurred through the legs of the crowd, the bag rattling behind it.

He opened his mouth to comment, and decided instead to spend some time later processing the sight once he had a drink in hand.

He looked back up at the coruscating lines of energy around the building, and at the open front door.

"Radio Officer Kelly," he said, after a moment of thought. "I'm sending in SWAT."

* * *

><p>Coraline threw the door to the Engine Room open at a run, and span to slam it shut behind her. She backed away quickly, angling the bat at the door, her eyes flitting from side to take in the room around her.<p>

The first thing she noticed was that it lived up to its name. It was as large as the entry hall, and dotted here and there on the floor, huge old-fashioned locomotives rusted and mouldered in the gloom. They were whole and in parts, with cobweb-covered piles of valve gears and smokestacks and headlights nestling amidst great cylindrical hulks. The floor she stepped on was an uneven and sharp carpet of broken rails and coupling rods and ties, which clanked and rustled as she walked.

Even if she'd been planning to creep away in silence, it wasn't on the table anymore.

She found herself backing into one of the locomotives, which had been almost entirely gutted of all its components, leaving only the dark main body. A rectangular tender jutted out from the back, connected to the engine by the cab. Coraline crept along the edge towards the tender. A constant pulse like hollow thunder came from the back of the room.

The door opened. Metal gleamed beyond it, and teeth flashed in a hungry leer, and the Beldam pulled herself through. She stalked on her four metal legs towards Coraline, who raised the bat again.

"Nowhere to run," hissed the Beldam, spitting out each word. "You're_ mine_."

She then shrieked and tore straight at Coraline, her outspread hand curving in the air. Coraline sprang to the left as the Beldam threw herself at her, and rolled on the ground as the Beldam's hand slashed off the side of the engine, leaving four bright coppery cuts in its side. She snapped her head around to track Coraline, who was running right at the Beldam with the bat.

Coraline had chosen to leap to the left for a reason. It gave her access to the Beldam's right side, which was useless to her in combat. She brought the bat straight into the Beldam's chest, sending her sprawling back with the unanticipated blow and snarling in pain and rage. The Beldam brought her left hand in a silver arc through the air at Coraline, but the motion was too slow and awkward, and Coraline danced around her and brought the bat down once again, this time onto her useless right shoulder. There was a crack, and the arm hung even more limply than it had before, and the Beldam howled with pain and anger.

She span to face Coraline faster than the girl could blink, and erupted out in a storm of fury. She rose back precariously onto her two back legs, and slashed at Coraline with the front two. The girl narrowly missed being skewered and tumbled back, unable to reach the Beldam past the extent of her thrashing metal claws.

She turned and ran around the locomotive, further into the room. The Beldam fell back closer to the ground, and scuttled after her.

Coraline raced all the way into the huge echoing room, controlling her breathing so as not to falter, running around the hulks of trains and leaping over the smaller part-piles. She ran with her eye on the very back of the room, once she saw what was there, the glimmerings of a plan taking shape in her mind.

As the room ran to the back, the walls began to curve inwards, slowly bringing the room to a stop in a huge convex curve. Along the sides of this curve were countless metalworking and forging tools; tongs and hollow cylinders, sheets of metal, open barrels of rivets, great hammers that were bigger than Coraline. Every metal surface gleamed bronze of brass in the dull light, light which acquired an orange tinge the further she went.

And the source of this orange light became clear at the furthest point of the room; the glow from the ever-molten metal held within a great steam hammer. It was a massive thing, a twenty-feet high bronze frame in which was set a cylinder, which dropped a hammer-like piston onto a glowing molten shape set on a three-foot-high anvil block of solid metal. At each regular interval at which the hammer fell, it did so with a scream of steam from the cylinder, and the crash when it landed echoed across the Engine Room.

The plan which entered Coraline's head when she saw the steam hammer was a stupid plan, an insane plan, a plan that would do the hero of a sub-par adventure story proud. But it was probably going to be her best shot; she couldn't run forever, and she would only have to make one mistake in a straight-up fight with the Beldam before she lost.

She put all her energy in outrunning the Beldam, the crash and echoes of the steam engine hindering her ability to pick out the clacking of the Beldam's feet. She finally stopped before the steam hammer, and turned on her heel to face the oncoming Beldam.

The Beldam saw Coraline stop and began to slow down, her expression still slightly calculating in spite of her overpowering hunger.

"Come on!" Coraline yelled, letting all the frustration and anger she had bottled away from the past day (Christ, was it really only a day since she'd come to Chicago?) enter her voice, a shrill note of rage. "Come on, you freak! I'm not running any more! Come on!"

Whatever shreds of self-restraint had still held upon the Beldam were torn away, and she charged right at Coraline with a cry of feral bloodlust, too lost to anger to care about Coraline's defence, too mindless with hunger to see what stood behind her target.

Coraline had timed the taunt when the Beldam had started her slower approach, and had timed for just when the steam hammer had nearly finished a slow ascent back up into the cylinder. She braced herself as the Beldam started to hurtle closer, and tossed her bat to one side. She tensed, and watched the hammer far above.

Then, just as the hammer started to fall once more, slammed down by an unstoppable force of steam, Coraline placed her hands on the anvil, ignoring the blisters she got from the hot metal, and, in a move her gymnastics teacher would applaud at, heaved herself up with all her strength in one swift movement and propelled herself across the air above the anvil. The Beldam leapt after her, her mouth agape and claw bristling.

Coraline slammed into the stone wall, and a sharp pain stabbed into her back as she fell to the floor. Coughing and dirt-smeared, she looked up at the oncoming Beldam. And, against all odds, she had managed to time the leap perfectly.

The hammer stabbed down with crushing force, directing more than thirty tons of weight into one flat surface, and catching the Beldam under it. She didn't have time to scream before she was flattened onto the anvil and crushed into the molten metal, and a spray of black, tarry blood flew out from all sides.

Coraline, as if in a dream, wiped off a blob that had gotten onto her cheek with one gloved hand, coughed, and pulled herself up. She looked at what she had done to the Beldam.

The creature had been broken beyond all possible help. Her legs were splayed over the anvil's sides, her body was a shattered mess. Black blood and smashed metal limbs lay in a smoking pool in an sharply defined hole that had been torn through her. Her head hung limply over the anvil side closest to Coraline.

And as Coraline watched, her head slowly raised, and her eyes looked directly at Coraline. Her mouth opened, and dark liquid dribbled out.

"C … Cora … line ..." she managed.

The steam hammer was already risng up above her, beginning a leisurely ascent back to the cylinder. It dripped while it rose.

Coraline, for a brief moment, considered fleeing, stricken by a sudden fear that this wasn't the end, that the Beldam's weakened state was merely crocodile tears, that she had to run for when the creature would start chasing her again.

But that was absurd, she told herself. No-one, human or Beldam or whatever, could have any hope of surviving most of their insides becoming their outsides. And it was a sin to leave someone to die alone.

She owed that much mercy to the helpless, dying Beldam. And she owed that much closure to herself. This for the end to her nightmares. This for a end to what happened in Ashland.

(There's no such thing as an ending. Only consequences, which breed consequences of their own. Coraline, much later, would come to appreciate that.)

"I'm here," she said softly to the shattered creature.

"Only ever … wanted to take what I _needed_," came a wet response. "Only took children because … needed to _feed_. No choice. No alternative. Gave love while I could, with tools at my disposal. Nothing … good or evil about it."

She retched up dark bile, and Coraline opened her mouth to speak, but the Beldam urgently cut her off.

"Loved you … love even now. Can't help it. Love while feeding. Force of habit. Hurt me. But fed." Her voice came in ragged gasps. "But _she_ won't."

"Who? Your sister?" asked Coraline.

"Mistake … to go to her. Insane. Bloated on cruelty. Twisted." Her voice strained. "_Evil._"

The hammer was two-thirds of the way to the cylinder.

"Run," whispered the Beldam. "Take your friends away. She … will hurt you. And take joy in it. Never wanted that." Her voice became almost too quiet to hear. "Never _wanted_."

"Can't I..." began Coraline, leaning in close to the Beldam.

"Run. Just run." The steam hammer had stopped at the top. "Don't look."

Coraline honoured her last wish and looked away, but stayed near her.

The hammer dropped, and slammed down closure with a final crash.

* * *

><p>"It was … right? Then down? Then we went along here for a bit. Wait, there's a clock! I recognise that clock! Where did the clock feature?"<p>

Wybie, who didn't enjoy the precision of Maria's mind in plotting direction, was retracing their route with aching slowness. He was glad to escape that waiting room, from the heat and bad memories of the place. He held his aerosol and lighter together in one hand, and his flashlight in the other.

He planned to meet up again with Coraline, and help her take down her Beldam if she hadn't done so already. Now that Maria had made it out with the souls, there was no other reason to hang around this place.

In fact, _had_ Maria made it out? The Czarina could have still been waiting in the entry hall for all Wybie knew. He fretted, and picked up his pace to make his fretting productive.

He then came to a stretch of corridor he recognised from when they'd been running. And there was only one door at the left end, so there was only one way to go. In fact, eh thought with some triumph, it might even be the door to the entry hall.

He opened the door and stepped through, then stopped cold.

The Czarina was waiting for him. Her smile was sharp and merciless, and her claw-hands rubbed together with anticipation and sadistic glee. Maria lay slumped and unconscious on the ground a short distance away, next to a crate of nails.

"Where _were_ you, dear?" she sang as he entered. "I do hope you weren't causing any sort of _bother_."

Quick as a flash, he dropped the flashlight on the ground, and it winked out with the tinkle of breaking glass. His lighter flew into his other hand, and he shifted into the same pose with which he'd faced down Mr Bodkin.

"Bother _this_-" he started.

But he never finished. One of the great hands hanging at the Czarina's side became a grey ghost in the air as it flew at Wybie and slashed the aerosol out of his grip. It flew away, impaled on a finger, and the hand bent in and blurred and bright ribbons of aluminium fell amidst a splash of hairspray. The hand reversed mid-swipe, and slashed back to flick the lighter out his grip, and it landed with a clatter in the middle of the hall.

Wybie stared, stunned, and the Czarina moved.

Her claw hands snatched out and grabbed at Wybie, and though he yelped and tried to pull back, he could never be fast enough, and they seized him and held him tight. He struggled and fought, and for his efforts the claws tightened, the metal points of the fingers digging painfully in.

Then suddenly, the Czarina seemed to take a sudden, intense breath in – and Wybie felt a paralysing coldness strike at him. It hollowed him, left him numb, and he choked on the appalling sensation.

"Such a _desire_ to escape," breathed the Czarina. "Such fire. Such life. And certain to be so, _so_ much sweeter with the buttons. But needs must. I can make use of you."

The Czarina picked him up casually, as if he weighed nothing, and turned and started walking with him towards the door at the left of the hall.

"Would you like to know what your friend is doing at this very moment, Wyborne dearest?" she trilled. Wybie struggled despite the pain, and the Czarina continued to talk without any input on his part.

"At the moment, she is killing my little sister," said the Czarina, as casually as one might comment on the weather. "_Such_ spirit. And inventiveness. And quite a disappointing show on the part of my sister. I had wished she would put up more of a contest than what she delivered, much like my Mr Bodkin. I do loathe disappointment."

"In a few moments, your friend will have collected herself and started making her way back to find you. She will expect me or Mr Bodkin. She will be wary and expecting danger."

"I don't want her to do that. I would prefer to minimise the risk from one capable of defeating one of our kind."

She suddenly set Wybie down, about forty feet from and facing the leftwards door. She forced him into a kneeling position, and made sure he couldn't move.

"I don't her to have time to plan and think rationally. I want her to come rushing, unable to think for urgency and mindless of risk. I want her off-guard when she finally arrives. And _you_-" Her voice tightened and sharpened, and buzzed with a horrific glee. "You, you twisted and useless little thing, might be of some assistance."

Her great hands suddenly flexed and moved towards Wybie. Each finger-point hung in the air before him, each one angled at him, each one gleaming as sharp as a needle.

"Dearest one," purred the Czarina, "You're going to _scream_."

* * *

><p>Coraline was leaning against the wall, having collected her bat, and was catching her breath again and letting the pain in her back fade before she headed off again.<p>

There suddenly came a squeaking sound from one of the brass locomotives before her, the sound of a hand against polished glass. Coraline stood straight up, her bat at the ready.

"Who's there?" she demanded. The squeaking came again. Coraline ventured closer to the locomotive, to the sound from where the sound was coming.

She looked at the great curved brass surface, and saw that it was steamed over, like a mirror in a steamy room. And as she watched, words took form in it, fading away and being replaced by each successive stream of words.

**Coraline Jones. You have proven to be a most amusing child.**

It was the Czarina. It had to be the Czarina.

**This was a death-game, dearest one, with only one winner. Had you been taken, my sister could have claimed you and I would be free of a mouth I was bound to feed.**

**And as you have defeated my sister, you are now mine for the taking.**

"Try it," whispered Coraline. "Just try it."

**I shall and have done. You are in my domain. You are lost and alone. You have no allies to call upon, no weapons that can best me, no life left but for a fleeting few minutes.**

_**And I have your twisted friend.**_

And then there came, from the station far above Coraline, the sound of an agonised scream.

Wybie.

Oh, god.

She'd brought him here.

Oh, _god_.

"Wybie!" she yelled, turning and rocketing towards the distant stairs. "Wybie, I'm coming, I'm coming!"

Words continued to form on the brass surface, mocking Coraline to her back. She ignored them as she ran, didn't bother to look at them, only ran to Wybie and his captor as fast as her legs could carry her.

"WYBIE, I'M COMING! HANG ON!"

**Run, Coraline. Run, Coraline.**

**Run.**

**Run.**

_**Run.**_

* * *

><p>She flew back through the door, heaving ragged breathes, heedless of the stitch in her side, only thinking of getting to her friend and taking out the monster that had him, and …<p>

"Stop where you are, dearest Coraline," called the Czarina.

Coraline saw. And stopped.

The Czarina loomed over Wybie and had him in her grasp. He was bent to face Coraline as she entered, and he looked at her brokenly.

Wherever the Czarina's hands had pressed upon him with expert precision, she had drawn blood, and aimed for clusters of nerves where she could do the most pain. Several small, deep cuts blossomed across his upper body, turning the coat darker. One cut was between his upper jaw and his ear, turning that side of his neck red.

"Stand down, Coraline. There's nothing you can do by fighting anymore," said the Czarina. "Kneel, won't you? And roll over that nasty bat. We won't need it."

"Don't listen to her," choked Wybie. "Run. Take Maria and forget about me, just get out of here..."

A finger jabbed down into the small of his back, and his voice turned into an anguished yell.

"Ignore dear Wyborne," said the Czarina. "His mind's not working right, poor boy. It's completely gone on account of pain. Won't you help him, Coraline? Give him peace of mind?"

Coraline shuddered and blinked away tears, refusing to show weakness in front of this creature.

No. This couldn't be how it ended. It wasn't _fair_.

"The bat, Coraline. And your submission."

"Promise me you'll let him go." Her voice trembled.

"The bat."

Since when had fairness mattered?

Slowly, shakingly, Coraline knelt on the ground, and rolled over her bat. It came to a halt halfway between her and the Czarina, rocking on the flagstones. Deep waves of laughter erupted from the Czarina's throat, a cruel, triumphant sound.

"I have you all," she trilled. "The parasite is dead. I have the city at my head, and _such_ puissant souls at my feet."

Her gaze turned to Coraline, slowly slithered into a sadistic smile, and looked down at Wybie.

"And, Wyborne dearest, I have no more use for _you_."

Before Coraline could scream, the Czarina's hand flashed and struck along Wybie's back, and a bright spray of crimson arced into the air.

Wybie fell forward to the ground, in the shadow of the Czarina, his blood splattering on the stones of Wells Street Station.


	14. Terminal

Coraline's mind initially refused to process what had just happened in front of her. She saw, as from a great distance in a dream, Wybie topple forward. She saw the Czarina's hand rise up, shining red in the dull light.

She saw...

She thought she saw...

She blinked.

Then she saw the wound that ran up Wybie's back, red blossoming out past the rent in the coat, and she saw the slight unsteadiness of the Czarina, and then she saw what else glinted beneath Wybie's coat, and then hope shot up inside her like fire, filling the spaces of hollow dread in her.

The Czarina's huge, delicate, blade-fingers had been perfect for slashing through flesh and cloth, and had easily cut through the fireman's coat, and could have easily cut through Wybie like tissue paper.

But Wybie hadn't just been wearing the coat. He'd been wearing his bulky, awkward, outdated, itchy back brace, and the force of the Czarina's slash had been robbed by rigid metal and plastic. Her strike had barely sheared through it and drawn blood in a long cut, but nothing more. And even as he fell on his face on the flagstones, Wybie let out a gasp of pain at the sudden addition to his collection of aches.

The Czarina screeched with absolute fury, and her claw-hands reached out for the prone Wybie. Her face bent into a vicious snarl, and her teeth glinted as she lowered her mouth.

Coraline was already moving, hurling herself from her kneeling position, moving faster than she had ever moved before. Her hand, working on automatic, reached out and seized the bat from the ground. Her hair was wild, her eyes blazed, and she screamed an inarticulate battle-cry as she ran, grasping the bat tightly with both hands.

The Czarina had the advantage on her in strength, height, speed, and reach. Her claws could slash through metal, and she was vast orders of magnitude more powerful than the Beldam Coraline had just fought and barely defeated.

Coraline didn't care.

This was the Czarina's realm. She could reshape it with a thought, deny Coraline any tactical advantage, make the world do her bidding.

Coraline didn't care about that, either.

Coraline was tired. She'd just fought the Beldam and taken heavy knocks to her back, and whatever energy fuelled her was only borrowed adrenaline and spite.

She didn't care.

All she saw was Wybie, her friend, under the feet of the Czarina, and all that mattered to her was getting her friend out of there, and all she intended to do was to make the Czarina _pay_.

She lunged and brought the bat across the reaching Czarina's claws, in a brutal smash that sent the claws flying off to one side, and which sent the unprepared, off-balance Czarina scuttling back on her four massive legs, quickly giving herself some breathing space. She lowered her torso and spread her great arms out to each side, and began circling Coraline in what could only be described as the Beldam equivalent of a knife-fighter's stance.

Coraline quickly stepped past Wybie and nudged him with her shoe to get him to start moving. He slowly started to crawl and to try to stand. The Czarina didn't notice him, so intent was she upon Coraline. Hatred was writ all over her face.

"You will die _screaming_, you little _speck_," she hissed.

"That makes two of us," said Coraline. She then jumped back as the Czarina's claws leapt out and slashed at Coraline. She avoided the blows, just to step within range of the sudden downwards strikes of her great hands. She stepped back just in time from those as well – and then the Czarina rose on her two back legs and drove the front two down at Coraline, scissoring them in the air. Coraline dropped onto her back to avoid them, and rolled away from the Czarina and picked herself up again as quickly as she could.

"You _dare_ to defy me?" spat the Czarina. "You arrogant little _worm_. I am a god here. You are _nothing_." She advanced on Coraline as she spoke. Her great hand once again sliced through the air at Coraline, who stepped back out of range again.

A razor-sharp leg stabbed out at Coraline, and she knocked it away with the bat. She withdrew quickly, trying to take stock of her surroundings, for anything that could help.

She saw that Maria was stirring, and moving towards Wybie, who was pulling himself up. He took the lighter that lay on the ground, perhaps just reaching out for something familiar. They both looked at Coraline and her combat, and their faces were shot through with concern.

"Get out of here! I can handle her!" yelled Coraline. She tried to step in closer to the Czarina to get in a solid blow with the bat, but a sudden whirling barrier of metal limbs made that a suicidal proposition, and she backed off. A overhead slash from a great hand forced her to duck, and she had to keep backing away, holding the bat tight to her.

The Czarina crouched and tensed, and then she broke into a run right at Coraline. She was faster than Coraline could ever be as well, and she was on the girl in a matter of seconds.

Coraline, bereft of all other options, desperately threw herself to the floor as the Czarina charged over her, and only frantic dodging and rolling and blind luck prevented her from being struck by one of the metal limbs that stabbed down at the ground around her. For a second, she was in the darkness of the Czarina's shadow, and the thunder of her passage filled her ears, and then she was free and pulling herself up again.

The Czarina's sheer mass and momentum were difficult to arrest, and she made a wide circle to came back to facing Coraline, her feet-points leaving deep grooves in the floor. She stared right at Coraline, her jaws heavy with slaver, her claws and hands dancing and writhing.

Coraline had followed the painstakingly-drilled instructions of Hwai-min. She had done her best to close off her fear for herself, closing it away in a compartment of her mind to be released and dealt with later. She was doing all she could to approach the fight in a careful and controlled way. She was doing all she could, period.

But she felt, with a growing and hollow and inevitable sensation, that that wouldn't be enough. She was almost certainly going to lose.

The Czarina left great hand suddenly struck out at Coraline's feet, and she barely leapt back to avoid it. It struck into the flagstones scant inches from her toes, and sent up sparks. Coraline lunged at it with the bat, but it drew back quickly.

Then it struck out again, and Coraline once more stepped back with scant inches to spare. The Czarina drew her hand back again, laughing, toying with her prey.

"What did you think you could do?" she sneered. "Fight me? Kill me? You're helpless." She slashed out again, and Coraline jumped back -

- Only to realise that that was the Czarina's intention, to keep her focused on the one hand while the other tore down at her from above.

She ducked to one side, but she was too slow to avoid it altogether. The hand slashed down, and the points of the longest two fingers hit the left side of Coraline's face. Pain exploded across her left cheek, blinding her, cutting off all other thoughts, and making her helpless against the follow-up blow.

One of the Czarina's claw-hands curled into a fist, and slammed out into Coraline's midriff. She was picked up by the force of the blow and tossed across the room like a ragdoll, and collided with the floor amidst a whirlwind of rushing noise and chaotic pain.

She couldn't think. She tried to think. She couldn't move. She tried to move.

Shaking, she pushed herself to her feet using the bat as a support, her head pounding like a full marching band was putting on a show inside. She blearily reached up with her left hand to touch her cut cheek, and her glove came away red and sticky with her blood.

While she fought off dizziness, she looked up and saw that she was facing the faraway exit, placing her just next to the central brick pillar. Wybie and Maria were next to the open exit, but they hadn't left. They wouldn't.

Then the Czarina stepped elegantly back into her field of view, between her and Wybie and Maria.

"I shall not make this quick," she purred. She innocently flexed her right hand, letting Coraline see the drops that fell off it.

Something felt broken in Coraline. Or maybe nothing was, and it was meant to hurt this much when you got gut-punched by something the size of the Czarina.

She had never felt so tired, had never wanted so badly to just lie down and shut the world away. She'd failed. She'd been stupid to come, she didn't have a hope, all that could happen was that Wybie and Maria could get away (but they wouldn't leave her alone) and she could hold the Czarina here long enough to …

She took a step back, and she backed into one of the lower barrels of Seneca Petroleum. She automatically steadied herself on it with one hand.

A plan suddenly came to her, weaving itself together out of random strands of thought in less than an instant.

It was a stupid plan. It was an insane plan. It was a plan that relied on too many things Coraline couldn't control, that had so many ways in which it could go wrong. But it did, after all, rely on the same basic principles that had worked so well against another Beldam.

Single-minded focus was an excellent trait for natural predators.

Apart from when it wasn't.

She steadied herself for the last time and, bat in hand, pushed past her pain, her doubts, and her despair. She started walking towards the Czarina.

"If you want me," she spat, pointing the bat at the Czarina, "Then come and _get me_. Come on, _coward!_"

The Czarina screeched with rage and hurled herself into a run right at Coraline. Coraline started running as well, straight towards the Czarina. She held the bat with both hands, and she yelled out an incoherent cry of pure defiance and challenge as she ran.

The Czarina thundered towards Coraline, and Coraline smacked away one swipe from a great hand with the bat and ducked under the other one. The claws streaked at her, and she threw herself into a baseball player's slide, and the curving fingers swept harmlessly overhead, brushing at her hair.

And then she drew upon what was left of her strength and, with all her anger, all her determination, and all her might, drove the bat up and brought it upon one of the joints in the Czarina's back right leg.

It hammered into the joint and buckled it with a sickening lurch and a scream of pain from the Czarina. She flailed and skidded helplessly, robbed of her control, unable to direct her momentum in any direction other than 'straight ahead'.

The Czarina flew into the pyramid of brass-bound barrels, and crashed amidst them with a sound like thunder and a rain of splinters. Fragments of staves and shattered brass hoops cascaded down on her in a torrent, and a veritable waterfall of blue-black liquid fell upon and around her, and the Czarina bellowed in rage and writhed to get free of the avalanche atop her.

Coraline didn't stop moving. She immediately rose from her knees and walked briskly towards the wide-eyed Wybie and Maria. She tossed the baseball bat at their feet.

"The lighter, Wybie," she said. "Right now."

He tossed her the lighter unquestioningly. She seized it with her left hand and turned back to the buried Czarina, who was furiously shaking off oil and barrel-shards. She pulled herself free from the shattered pile by degrees, her claws ripping away sections of wood and brass, her great hands pinned and unable to move.

With her left thumb and index finger, Coraline tugged off her right glove, the only one that wasn't damp with blood. She transferred the lighter to her right hand and, keeping the right glove dangling, flicked a spark from the lighter. She touched it to the tip of the glove, and watched the flames catch and begin to creep up it. Green and orange blurred together and became bright, leaping flame. While it burned, she bent down and picked up a stone from the ground and slipped it inside the glove and tied the end off. It would need weight.

Then she began to spin the arm that held the glove, letting it gather speed, turning it into a nimbus of fire in the air. And at the height of one spin, she threw it right at the Czarina.

The glove arced through the air like a shooting star, leaving am amber trail behind it, sparks and burning fibres shed in its wake. It dropped towards the pinned Czarina and hit her face in a slap, and fell down between her legs towards a pool of oil and splinters.

It landed palm-down. And then it caught the oil, and then the world blazed.

Fire screamed like a demon hurled out of hell. The heat and force all but exploded up from beneath the Czarina in its mindless wrath, detonating with light and heat in the air. It sucked in air to feed itself, a ravening firestorm that engulfed the Czarina and the pile atop her, the thunderous roar of the flames modulated by the frantic screams of the Czarina, reduced to a twisting shadow at the heart of the inferno.

Coraline watched it with dark satisfaction and a grim smile, the fires reflected in her eyes. It wasn't a reassuring expression, especially against an all-red side of her face.

"Coraline?" called Wybie, snapping her back to reality and away from the dark place her thoughts had gone. "Come on! We have to go!"

She turned her back on the fire and started walking towards them briskly. Wybie was standing as best he could, though his teeth were gritted and his eyes ran with the pain across his back. He held the bat in one hand. Maria leaned on him slightly for support. One of her feet seemed to be twisted at an unnatural angle. Both of them looked as exhausted as Coraline, and terrified.

"That..." started Wybie, lost for words as Coraline came closer. "That … with the lighter … and then you … Jesus Christ on a bicycle."

"She's down. We have to go," said Coraline. She reached out with both her hands. "Come on, I'll help you both..."

The spit and crackle of the flames, sharpened by shrieks, suddenly acquired a new sound. The sound of shifting and cracking wood and debris.

Coraline turned to see what was happening. The high pile of incandescent rubble was shifting, as if something was fighting it from within.

And then a claw-hand, glowing red-hot and trailing fire that had affixed itself to the metal, came hurtling out of the flames and gouged into the flagstones. The elbow bent, and the fire cascaded forwards. Another hand shot out and slammed into the ground.

Past the hands, Coraline could make out a face obscured by flame. The screams grew louder. The Czarina was pulling herself free.

The walls of the station started to shift and crack as the Czarina lost control, the colours began to be literally peeled off the furthest walls to be replaced by shades of grey. And the peeling of colour spread, and the greyness began to crumble away to nothing.

"Run!" Coraline yelled, rushing back to Wybie and Maria, seizing a hand each and pulling them along. "Come on, quickly!" Maria stifled a scream as her weight came down on her injured foot, and hobbled on past it as best she could.

"Oh, god. What's trying to kill us now?" said Wybie weakly.

"Less talking, more _running away_." They flew for the open door, and stepped out onto the rails. Coraline glanced behind her at the station's inside.

The station rocked and clashed in its throes, a condition that increased as the Czarina ripped herself free with a terrible force, her claws flying and tearing at the ground with machine-like strength and ferocity, physically hauling herself out of the inferno, but carrying it with her anyway.

She was a burnt corpse from the waist up, a blackened and screaming creature whose flesh sloughed off in flakes of ash, revealing metal bones. Her carapace was equally burnt, and everything of her that was metal blazed like the sun. Her hair, what was left, had become a halo of flame. Her face had become something from an insomniac's darkest nightmares. Her button-eyes were circles of fire. The leg Coraline had broken dragged behind her. One of her thin great arms had been warped and bent by the force of the heat.

She was still burning. She was still wrapped in wreathes of fire.

And she _screamed_ as she came after the three.

"NO MERCY FOR YOU, NO MERCY!" she screamed, from a harsh and torn throat, as she fell into a scuttle made strange by her useless, hanging limbs. "YOU WILL SUFFER AS YOU HAVE NEVER SUFFERED!"

"Keep running!" yelled Coraline, stepping as quickly as she could across the rails leading to the doorway to the Merch Mart. This wasn't helped in the slightest by the fact that as they ran, the rails and ties were thinning and becoming liquor-black, coin-thick web strands, suspended in the air between the doorways and the station. Every step had the potential to unbalance them and sending them falling forever. She was terrified for the other two, worried that their footing would be nowhere near as sure as hers (and her own was pretty unsteady.) She grasped their hands tight and pressed on.

The Czarina scuttled out of the door after them and picked her way along the bridge-web after them, making it wobble and lurch and almost tip them over. She didn't stop screaming.

"YOUR EYES WILL BE TORN OUT, YOUR SKIN WILL BE FLAYED FROM YOUR FLESH, YOUR FLESH WILL BE SCOURGED FROM YOUR BONES..."

The door was so, so close. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five...

There was another horrific lurch from the web, and Coraline feared that it would be the one to capsize them. But she managed to retain her footing on the strands. And Wybie and Maria, weak as they were, held their ground.

The station was destroying itself behind them. A holocaust of spreading fire ripped it to pieces from the inside out even as it dissolved itself to conserve the Czarina's energy, which Coraline guessed she was burning through just to keep herself alive. The other far doorways were starting to wink out, and the web-bridges leading to them were rotting away in the blink of an eye.

"...YOU WILL BEG FOR DEATH, YOUR BLOOD WILL FLOW, YOUR BONES WILL BE SHATTERED ONE BY ONE..."

Some people might have observed that the Czarina was not in a good mood. Not Coraline. She was too busy shoving Wybie and Maria ahead of herself into the open door, and leaping onto the edge and pulling herself through after them. She landed on her knees, with the other two coughing and drawing breath just ahead of her.

For a moment, elation surged through her. They had made it, they were free of Wells Street Station, the Czarina wouldn't...

"...AND I WILL THIRST AND BREAK AND KILL AND KILL AND KILL..."

Ah, right. The door was still open. That could be a problem.

Coraline leaned out and tried to grab the door shut. But to her mounting horror, it was at too obtuse an angle to the doorway for her to reach the copper handle from her position. Whatever purchase she tried to get on the edges slipped off, the door refused to budge. The Czarina scuttled closer.

"...KILL AND KILL AND KILL..."

Frantically, Coraline turned around and considered outrunning the Czarina up the tunnel. But that wasn't an option. Nearly everything she'd had had been taken out of her, she knew she couldn't muster the strength for an uphill run. And Maria couldn't run with that foot. And that Wybie wasn't unconscious from blood loss was a miracle. They couldn't run.

Coraline knew then in her gut that this really was the end, that it was over. All she could do was stand here for the Czarina to come. The Czarina kept on coming, and the station completely collapsed into nothingness behind her. The doorway they were in was the last one left, and the web-bridge leading to it flapped loose without a structure at the other end. But the Czarina kept coming.

"...KILL AND KILL AND KILL..."

Coraline turned to the oncoming Czarina, still crouched on her knees, and bunched her hands into fists. She took a pugilistic stance, tiny and absurd in the face of the monster nearly upon her.

"Come on, then," she whispered with force.

The Czarina screeched and shot one great hand through the doorway, grabbing into it and digging her fingers into the left wall to give herself support. Her claws retained a tight grip on the web-bridge. Her face, all cauterised, burning skin and blazing teeth, poked through into the tunnel.

Coraline's fist blurred in the air and broke what was left of the Czarina's nose. The fires blistered her hand, and although the Czarina's head briefly snapped back from the force of it, she immediately pushed back through, the heat beating off her in waves and her open jaws glistening.

There was movement to either side of Coraline. She flicked her head from side to side briefly to see what it was.

To her left and slightly behind her, Wybie stood as straight as he could, holding the baseball bat with both hands.

To her right and below her, Maria lay tensed and ready, her tiny box-knife held in her hand.

Coraline crouched between them, her fists still raised.

Suddenly, with every ounce of strength that remained to him, Wybie yelled and brought the bat around in a whirlwind movement right onto the Czarina's hand. It smashed right through, and shards of metal fingers clattered to the floor. The Czarina howled and reflexively drew back the hand.

Maria, at the same time, lashed out with the box knife and drew it straight across the web strands connected to the bottom of the doorway. For all that the box knife was cheap and plasticy, the blade at the end was still sharp steel, and it slashed right through the strands like butter.

The Czarina hung in mid-air for one brief moment, robbed of both of her holds on solid ground. Her other hand flailed out in a desperate effort to catch the door itself, but she caught it with too much force and desperation, and it was ripped clean off its hinges, sending it falling down into the white void.

The Czarina fell after it with tremendous momentum, flames shedding off in the air above her as she plummeted. "_...Kill and kill and kill..._" still erupted from her throat, carried to the three for as long as the empty air could carry it.

She burned all the way down, her light lasting longer than her voice, until it became a tiny flickering prick amidst white space on all sides, and finally vanished altogether.

Then it was over. But not ended.

Coraline and Wybie and Maria sank to the tunnel floor, in silence. Adrenaline ebbed. Exhaustion followed its absence.

"Wybie, does that hurt?" asked Coraline after a while.

He considered his responses for a moment, before deciding on "Nope. Doesn't hurt at all. Feels like a breeze in spring. Why do you ask?"

Coraline couldn't muster the energy to punch his shoulder, so he got off lucky. "Where's the soul bag, Maria?"

"A cat came and got it." They all nodded. They were past questioning a statement like that.

"Well, you know, that was alright while it lasted," said Wybie, his voice drained but still managing to convey a smile. "A bit dull, though. We should bring coffee next time to keep ourselves awake. It needed more thrills, I thought."

"You really need psychiatric help, Why-Were-You-Born," said Coraline without rancour.

For a while they just sat there in silence. Each ache was a scar of victory, the price of defeating the Czarina.

But empty wind now blew through where had once been Wells Street Station, serene silence through space once filled by screams. If that was the reward of victory, then it had been worth it, and a thousand expeditions like it.

"We should probably go and get medical help at some point," said Coraline, the thought occupying to her after another stabbing pain came from her cheek. She would likely have scars there, she knew.

"I might be able to stand if I had help," said Wybie. "It's a matter of me not bleeding out before we get up the tunnel."

"I don't think I could. Sorry," said Maria.

"Well, look, one of us could go and..."

There was the sound of heavy footfalls from the tunnel above them, and the glow of an oncoming flashlight cutting through the darkness. The three turned to see who was coming.

The flashlight was connected to a blocky assault rifle, and the assault rifle was connected to a man in heavy dark blue body armour. The insignia of the Chicago SWAT division glinted on his shoulders. His pace slowed as he neared the three, and stopped altogether as he looked down at them and then out at the open void through the stone doorway.

Although his face was entirely concealed by a helmet fitted with a gas mask, it was still easy to imagine the expression on his face at that exact moment.

Coraline, sympathising with the man's confusion (while still a little annoyed that he'd shown up a little late), opened her mouth to start trying to explain things, but the man shook his head as soon as she started.

"No, don't even bother," he said. "I imagine whatever the hell's happened here, it's about to become way, _way_ above my pay grade to deal with it. The higher-ups can have fun with this one." He turned back up the tunnel. "Kowalski! Get your ass down here and bring your first aid kit! We've got three hurt kids!"

"Three _meddling_ kids," muttered Wybie, and Coraline and Maria tried to suppress giggles.

* * *

><p>A barrage of impressions hit Coraline when she was carried out on a stretcher, out into Chicago.<p>

First, the sun. The clouds had broken apart, and for the moment, it shone like a coin in the clear blue sky, bathing the buildings and pavement in a soft, golden light.

Then, the wind. It was a gentle breeze that beat against her. The surface of the river rippled under it, and trees waved slightly in it. It flicked at stray strands of her hair, that of it which wasn't plastered against her scalp.

As the stretcher moved to an ambulance, she saw that there were lots of people around, hundreds, maybe thousands. They looked up at the Mart and stared and shouted to each other about her and Wybie and Maria on the stretchers as they came out of the building. Police formed a thin line between them and the Mart, most of whom looked as though they'd been having a long day and would be glad to see the end of it.

They moved on. Press people stood in a knot amidst the crowd and directed the glare of camera up at the building, taking shot after endless shot of it. Coraline wondered why they were doing that, though she wasn't too inclined to ponder it. The police medic had injected her and the other two with some kind of painkiller, that impeded pain and direct thought while making colours look _incredible_.

Speaking of the other two, she turned her head slightly and caught sight of them next to her. Maria seemed to be absorbed by the clouds and flights of birds above her, her eyes flickering with the need to sleep. But Wybie saw her gaze, and returned it with a slightly concussed grin and a slight wave.

Past him, Coraline thought she could see her parents and his grandmother. They were accompanied by police, and they looked very upset and very relieved about something, and Coraline briefly tried to remember what that was before deciding that it would come to her after a short sleep.

The crowd rolled and Chicago turned like a wasp's next as the three were loaded into an ambulance to receive attention for their cuts and scrapes. A short distance away, a SWAT officer was explaining things to a police captain, who was listening with the reigned expression of one who knows that this conversation is going to make their day even longer than it was previously. Mel and Charlie and Miss Lovat pushed past police to the ambulance to see their kids and grandchild. The city was a tumult, and would remain so for at least another week.

And below the city, nothing stirred for the first time in centuries. And around the city, three hundred tiny souls sped and flew through the streets, laughing and playing in the light as they rose into the sky.

It was the very definition of a beautiful day in the Windy City.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Afterthoughts:<strong>

**That's it. You've made it to the end. You're free**** to run away now****. Unless you were reading this of your own free will, you crazy, crazy person.****  
><strong>

**I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed and commented on this. Thank you, in no particular order, WybiE'z KidNapPer (Miss Thimble advises that you use chloroform), deedeedragonwolf, Sifu Toph, Model Builder, talking black kitty of night, Mandy the Oddball, Calyn, James Birdsong, Autumn's Melody, and WybourneObsessed. You're all excellent. And even if you've made it this far without reviewing, you're still excellent.**

**This isn't the end of this particular story. At some point in the hopefully-not-too-distant future, I plan to begin writing a followup to this, at the moment entitled 'The Ellipse'.**

**Until then, stay safe, keep reading stuff, and if a little door appears in your living room, then for the love of god, _don't go near_.**

**- Marquis Carabas, signing off.**


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